Republicans attack law against domestic violence

	Dennis, click here to tell Republican senators to stop trying to weaken laws against domestic violence and sexual assault. Republicans have decided it isn't enough to try and defund Planned Parenthood and to prevent birth control from being covered by health insurance plans. Now they are attempting to weaken laws against domestic violence and sexual assault. The Violence Against Women Act was first passed in 1994, providing billions to enhance investigation and prosecution of violent crimes perpetrated against women. It was most recently reauthorized in 2005 by unanimous consent in the Senate. It's up for reauthorization again, but this time it received zero Republican votes in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Why? Because Republicans want to throw out provisions in the bill protecting victims who are LGBT or undocumented, slash funding for enforcement, and eliminate entirely "the Justice Department office devoted to administering the law and coordinating the nation’s response to domestic violence and sexual assaults." I'm sure it's all just a coincidence Republicans are going to the mat to weaken laws against domestic violence and sexual assault, to end funding for breast cancer screenings, and to keep health insurance plans from covering birth control. No war on women happening here. Click here to sign the petition telling Senate Republicans to stop trying to slash the Violence Against Women Act. We'll deliver the signatures. Thanks for all you do, Laura Clawson, Daily Kos

Dear Mr. President

As the debate over deficits ramped up in Washington on Monday, Sen. Bernie Sanders laid out the compelling case not to slash programs for working families. Any deficit reduction package must rely on new revenue for at least half the reduction in red ink, he added in a major address in the Senate. Sanders spoke at length about what caused deficits (wars, Wall Street bailouts, tax breaks for the rich) and how to shrink them (more revenue from the wealthiest Americans to match spending cuts). He urged fellow senators not to yield to Republican congressional leaders who "acted like schoolyard bullies" when they walked out of budget negotiations. He summed up the situation in a letter to the president that had been signed by more than 16,000 people by the time he completed his speech.

Sign the letter »
http://sanders.senate.gov/petition/?uid=c1fd7f9b-abd8-4e7a-a370-1867881259d8

The difference between Democrats and Republicans

What is exactly the difference between Democrat and Republic in politics?

Republicans:

1. Deeply religious in a conservative sense (No gays marriage, Pro-Life, etc) -Anti-Government (Don’t like a big government, with lots of procedures and social programs that they believe clot up the system and aren’t as effective as a free market economy)
2. Pro-Business (Less taxes, less government regulations of business to help those businesses compete globably, etc)
3. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps; (Don’t like social programs because they feel that they just give handouts to people who could ’easily’ be working for the money they are getting for free instead.)

Democrats:

1. Varied religiously, however feel religion doesn’t have a place in politics and government: (Believe that God should not really be an issue in politics, other than perhaps a mild basis on ethics and morality of interactions between people, but in no way used as a condemnation of an individual.)
2. Pro-Government: (Want programs to help those who need help, poor, or confused, believe that it helps the economy because it also gives jobs where they may not exist without government employment.
3. Anti-Pro-Business legislation: (While still being for a free market (although this is varied), most democrats believe that regulations are essential to making sure that businesses don’t overrun public property with polution or create monopolies of a market.)
4. Pro-Social programs: Believe that people need help from time to time, and that giving a little government aid hasn’t hurt anyone to dearly since most of that money is spent within the area that the money came from.

I personally think Republicans give too much power to corporations which leaves little power for the people to fend for themselves without having to depend on large industry for their needs. Creating a nanny state through the corporations. Democrats tend to be a 'big tent' party meaning they do not vote along party lines making it difficult to make sweeping changes. Each party is necessary for the our nation to stay in balance. We are a republic that votes as a democracy. It is a difficult scale to balance.

Yet we have made this far.

ITALIA FEDERICI SENTENCED FOR OBSTRUCTING SENATE INVESTIGATION INTO ABRAMOFF CORRUPTION SCANDAL

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AT
DECEMBER 14, 2007 (202) 514-2007
http://www.usdoj.gov/

WASHINGTON - Italia Federici, the former president of the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy (CREA), has been sentenced to four years of probation and ordered to pay more than $74,000 in restitution, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division and Acting Assistant Attorney General Richard T. Morrison of the Tax Division announced today.

Federici, 38, of Washington, D.C., was sentenced today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle. In imposing Federici's sentence, Judge Huvelle granted the government's motion for a downward departure based on the substantial assistance Federici provided in the investigation of the corruption scandal surrounding former lobbyist Jack A. Abramoff. Court documents reflect that Federici's cooperation concerned, among other things, the corrupt relationship and dealings that occurred between Abramoff and J. Steven Griles while Griles served as the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), the second-highest ranking official at DOI.

Federici pleaded guilty on June 8, 2007, to one count of income tax evasion and one count of obstructing the U.S. Senate's investigation into the lobbying activities of Abramoff. Griles, Abramoff, and several others have pleaded guilty in connection with the government's public corruption investigation.

According to court documents, Federici admitted to obstructing the investigation of the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs into Abramoff, which began in the fall of 2004. Federici also admitted to willfully evading her individual income taxes for the calendar years 2001 through 2003 by, among other things, failing to segregate her personal finances from CREA's, using cash to handle CREA's and her own personal finances, failing to maintain proper books and records or properly report CREA's payroll, failing to submit her U.S. individual income tax returns on the relevant due dates, and then failing to pay the income taxes owed. Federici admitted that in lieu of taking a regular salary, she and CREA's other officer, Jared Carpenter, obtained funds from CREA by direct cash withdrawals from CREA's bank account. Carpenter, who pleaded guilty on July 6, 2007, to income tax evasion, is also being sentenced today by Judge Huvelle.

Court documents reflect that Federici was the founder and president of CREA, a non-profit organization set up in Colorado in 1997 and incorporated in Washington, D.C., in 2000 as an Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(4) corporation. On March 1, 2001, she introduced Abramoff to Griles just before Griles was nominated to be DOI's Deputy Secretary. At the time, Federici and Griles were friends, and Griles had helped raise funds for CREA, which had operated primarily through donations.

Griles was confirmed as DOI's Deputy Secretary on July 12, 2001, and served in that position until he resigned effective Jan. 31, 2005. In her guilty plea, Federici admitted that during much of Griles' DOI tenure, she served as a conduit for information between Abramoff and Griles. In this role, she would communicate in-depth with Abramoff about his clients and the issues and concerns applicable to them, and then communicate in-depth with Griles about these issues and/or forward to Griles information and documents Abramoff supplied. Federici also admitted that she met with Abramoff and Griles in order to speak substantively and directly about these issues while Griles was DOI Deputy Secretary. Among other things, Federici's involvement as a conduit between Abramoff and Griles hindered DOI's official record-keeping about Griles' contacts with lobbyists such as Abramoff, and DOI's ability to measure the level of Abramoff's access to Griles.

Griles pleaded guilty to obstructing the Senate committee's Abramoff investigation and was sentenced on June 26, 2007, to ten months in prison and fined $30,000.

Court documents reveal that beginning soon after Federici introduced Abramoff to Griles and began serving as a conduit for information, Abramoff and certain of his Native American tribal clients became significant donors to CREA. Ultimately, Abramoff personally and through his Native American tribal clients donated a total of $500,000 to CREA between March 2001 and May 2003.

In the wake of the Abramoff scandal, Federici was interviewed by Senate investigators, and then testified before members of the Senate committee during a Nov. 17, 2005, public hearing. The Senate committee was investigating the level of access Abramoff had to Griles and the extent of the communications involving Federici, Abramoff and Griles. Federici admitted that during both her interview and her hearing testimony, she lied to and withheld material information from senators and Senate investigators in responding to questions about the extent of the communications involving her, Abramoff, and Griles during Griles' DOI tenure.

Total Convicted Republicans 205, Democrats 3.

Republicans Convicted/Pled Guilty
--------------
Republican Governor George Ryan - 4/17/2006 racketeering and bribery - (76 people convicted)
Republican Governor Bob Taft - 8/18/2005. 5 counts failure to report gifts from Lobbyists
Republican Governor John Rowland - 12/24/2004 Bribery
Republican Governor Sonny Perdue - Campaign ethics violations

NH GOP Chair Chuck McGee - conspiricy to make harrasing phone calls to block people from voting.
Republican Aide Allen Raymond
Republican James Tobin (NE Regional Dir., Bush campaign) - 12/15/05 conspiracy to commit telephone harassment, aiding and abetting of telephone harassment
Republican Charles McGee (Executive Director of the NH Republican State Committee )
Republican Shaun Hansen. GOP Marketing aide - conspiracy to commit telephone harassment and aiding and abetting telephone harassment

Republican Aide Scott Falwell - racketeering, mail fraud and obstruction of justice
Republican Aide Alexandra Prokos - Perjury
Republican Aide Jim Ellis - 13 counts of unlawful acceptance of a corporate political contribution, money laundering
Republican Aide John Colyandro - money laundering
Republican Brian Hicks - bribery
Republican Chief of Staff Peter Ellef - Bribery
Republican Roger G. Stillwell - Interior Department official - bribed by Abramoff

Republican Lobbyist Jack Abramoff - defrauding of American Indian tribes and corruption of public officials
Republican Tony Rudy (lobbyist and aide to Tom Delay) - conspiricy
Republican Representative Bob Ney - Conspiricy to defraud the United States and making false statements
Republican Neil Volz (lobbyist and aide to Bob Ney) - bribery and corruption
Republican William Heaton(Bob Ney's chief of staff) - Conspiricy
Republican Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham - conspiracy to commit bribery, mail fraud, wire fraud, and tax evasion

Republican David Hossein Safavian. Lying, obstruction of Justice
Republican Peter Kott - perjury, solicited bribes
Democratic Senator Traficant - bribery and forcing his aides to perform chores

Republican Chief of Staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby - two counts of perjury, one of obstruction of justice, and one of making false statements to federal investigators
Republican Tom Noe - Laundered money for the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign, theft, corruption, party chairman and Bush Pioneer fundraiser
Republican Gov Ernie Fletcher - 13 aides indicted
Republican Micheal Scanlon (lobbyist and aide to Tom DeLay) - bribery
Deputy Secretary Steven Griles - bribery, perjury, obstrcting a congressional investigation.
Republican Congressional aide Mark Zachares - bribery


Confessed under grant of Immunity---------------------------------
Monica Goodling, White House liaison for Alberto Gonzales - Hired federal prosecuters based upon party affiliation.


Indicted/Charged----------------
Republican Tom Delay - conspiring to violate Texas state election law, money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Reprimanded by House Ethics Committee
Republican Lawrence Novak
Republican Nathan Taylor
Kyle "Dusty" Foggo (George W Bush's CIA Executive Director) - 30 wide-ranging counts of fraud, conspiracy,
money laundering, leaking classified information.
Republican Lurita Alexis Doan, Administrator of the General Services Administration - violations of the Hatch act.
Democratic Senator William Jefferson - 16 counts of racketeering, soliciting bribes and money-laundering


Under investigation---------------------------
Republican Senator Ben Stevens - bribery, corruption
Republican Karl Rove - Abramoff, interfering in federal investigations, obstruction of justice
Republican President George W. Bush - Abramoff, interfering in federal investigations, obstruction of justice
Republican Vice President Dick Cheney - Abramoff, interfering in federal investigations, obstruction of justice
Republican Governor and RNC Chairman Haley Barbour - Laundered money from foreign governments into presidential elections. Used non-profit organizations for illegal purposes. Perjury.
Republican Representive Mark Foley - Pediphilia
Republican Representive Mark Reynolds - Covered up for Mark Foley
Republican Representive Dennis Hastert - Covered up for Mark Foley
Republican Governor Mitt Romney - Made false statements to bondholders
Republican Governor/Ex Representative Jim Gibbons - Bribery
Republican Attorney General Gonzales - Fired US Attorneys for prosecuting Republicans, interfering in federal investigations, obstruction of justice, lying to Congress, perjury, witness tampering.
Republican Paul J. McNulty - Deputy Attorney General. Interfering in federal investigations, obstruction of justice, lying to Congress, perjury
Republican Senator Pete Domenici - Used influence to get a US Attorney fired
Republican Representative Heather Wilson - Used influence to get a US Attorney fired
Republican Representative Tom Feeney - bribery
Republican Representative Richard George Renzi - bribery, conflict on interest.
Republican Representative Jerry Lewis - Accepted gifts from Lobbyists, bribery, honest services fraud, dispensation of special favors
Republican Representative John Doolittle - Accepted money from Jack Abramoff in exchange for favors.
Democratic Representative Alan Mollohan -May have funnelled money to his own home-state foundations
Republican Representative Rick Renzi - bribery, sponsored legislation that dealt hundreds of millions of dollars to his father’s business
Republican Representative Tim Murphy - Ethics violations regarding use of Congressional staff for campaign purposes.
Republican Representative Gary Miller - Illegal land deals, tax fraud
Republican Representative Ken Calvert - Steered federal money to projects near his private real estate developments.
Republican Representative Don Young - bribery

Implicated - May be under investigation---------------------------------------
Richard Shelby (REPUBLICAN SENATOR - AL)
Robert Riley (REPUBLICAN GOVENOR- AL)
J. D. Hayworth (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - AZ)
Dana Rohrabacher (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - CA)
Doug Ose (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - CA)
Richard Pombo (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - CA)
John Doolittle (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - CA)
Ed Royce (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - CA)
Scott McInnis (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - CO)
Rob Simmons (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - CT)
Tom Feeney (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - FL)
Ric Keller (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - FL)
John Isakson (REPUBLICAN SENATOR - GA)
Saxby Chambliss (REPUBLICAN SENATOR - CA)
Jack Kingston (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - GA)
Michael Simpson (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - ID)
Butch Otter (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - ID)
Jerry Walker (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - IL)
Dan Burton (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - IN)
Charles Grassley (REPUBLICAN SENATOR - IA)
BOB EHRLICH (REPUBLICAN GOVENOR- MD)
Dave Camp (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - MI)
Gil Gutknecht (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - MN)
Christopher Bind (REPUBLICAN SENATOR- MO)
Jim Talent (REPUBLICAN SENATOR- MO)
Charles Pickering (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - MS)
Roger Wicker (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - MS)
Thad Cochran (REPUBLICAN SENATOR- MS)
Dennis Rehberg (REPUBLICAN SENATOR- MT)
Jon Christensen (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - NE)
John Ensign (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - NV)
Roger Wicker (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - MS)
Jim Saxton (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - NJ)
Frank LoBiondo (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - NJ)
Mike Ferguson (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - NJ)
Heather Wilson (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - NM)
Charles Taylor (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - NC)
Walter Jones (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - NC)
Jean Schmidt (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - OH)
Ralph Regula (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - OH)
Ernest Istook (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - OK)
James Inhofe (REPUBLICAN SENATOR- OK)
Tom Coburn (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - OK)
Gordon Smith (REPUBLICAN SENATOR- OR)
Arlen Specter (REPUBLICAN SENATOR- PA)
Curt Weldon (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - PA)
Joe Pitts (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - PA)
John Thune (REPUBLICAN SENATOR - SD)
Bill Janklow (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - SD)
Van Hilleary (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - TN)
Chris Cannon (REPUBLICAN SENATOR- UT)
Eric Canter (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - VA)
Randy Forbes (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - VA)
George Allen (REPUBLICAN SENATOR- VA)
Tom Davis (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - VA)
George Nethercutt (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - WA)
Doc Hastings (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - WA)
Dave Reichert (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - WA)
Mark Green (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - WI)
Paul Ryan (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - WI)
Shelly Moore Capito (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - WV)
Mike Enzi (REPUBLICAN SENATOR- WY)
Barbara Cubin (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - WY)
Robert Riley (REPUBLICAN GOVENOR - AL)
Marilyn Musgrave (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE- CO)
Jim Nussle (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - IA)
Matt Blunt (REPUBLICAN GOVENTOR- MO)
Roy Blunt (REPUBLICAN MAJORITY LEADER - MO)
Jon Christensen (FORMER REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE- NE)
Jeb Bradley (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - NH)
John E Sununu (REPUBLICAN SENATOR - NH)
Jean Schmidt (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - OH)
Joe Wilson(REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - SC)
Gresham Barrett (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - SC)
Henry Brown (REPUBLICAN REPRESENTATIVE - SC)

Convicted: 102 Republicans. 1 Democrat
Indicted: 5 Republicans. 1 Democrats
Confessed under grant of Immunity: 1 Republican. 0 Democrats.
Under investigation: 21 Republicans. 1 Democrat.
implicated: 75 Republicans. 0 Democrats

Total: 204 Republicans. 3 Democrats.

Distract and Disenfranchise

By Paul Krugman
The New York Times

Monday 02 April 2007

I have a theory about the Bush administration abuses of power that are now, finally, coming to light. Ultimately, I believe, they were driven by rising income inequality.

Let me explain.

In 1980, when Ronald Reagan won the White House, conservative ideas appealed to many, even most, Americans. At the time, we were truly a middle-class nation. To white voters, at least, the vast inequalities and social injustices of the past, which were what originally gave liberalism its appeal, seemed like ancient history. It was easy, in that nation, to convince many voters that Big Government was their enemy, that they were being taxed to provide social programs for other people.

Since then, however, we have once again become a deeply unequal society. Median income has risen only 17 percent since 1980, while the income of the richest 0.1 percent of the population has quadrupled. The gap between the rich and the middle class is as wide now as it was in the 1920s, when the political coalition that would eventually become the New Deal was taking shape.

And voters realize that society has changed. They may not pore over income distribution tables, but they do know that today's rich are building themselves mansions bigger than those of the robber barons. They may not read labor statistics, but they know that wages aren't going anywhere: according to the Pew Research Center, 59 percent of workers believe that it's harder to earn a decent living today than it was 20 or 30 years ago.

You know that perceptions of rising inequality have become a political issue when even President Bush admits, as he did in January, that "some of our citizens worry about the fact that our dynamic economy is leaving working people behind."

But today's Republicans can't respond in any meaningful way to rising inequality, because their activists won't let them. You could see the dilemma just this past Friday and Saturday, when almost all the G.O.P. presidential hopefuls traveled to Palm Beach to make obeisance to the Club for Growth, a supply-side pressure group dedicated to tax cuts and privatization.

The Republican Party's adherence to an outdated ideology leaves it with big problems. It can't offer domestic policies that respond to the public's real needs. So how can it win elections?

The answer, for a while, was a combination of distraction and disenfranchisement.

The terrorist attacks on 9/11 were themselves a massive, providential distraction; until then the public, realizing that Mr. Bush wasn't the moderate he played in the 2000 election, was growing increasingly unhappy with his administration. And they offered many opportunities for further distractions. Rather than debating Democrats on the issues, the G.O.P. could denounce them as soft on terror. And do you remember the terror alert, based on old and questionable information, that was declared right after the 2004 Democratic National Convention?

But distraction can only go so far. So the other tool was disenfranchisement: finding ways to keep poor people, who tend to vote for the party that might actually do something about inequality, out of the voting booth.

Remember that disenfranchisement in the form of the 2000 Florida "felon purge," which struck many legitimate voters from the rolls, put Mr. Bush in the White House in the first place. And disenfranchisement seems to be what much of the politicization of the Justice Department was about.

Several of the fired U.S. attorneys were under pressure to pursue allegations of voter fraud - a phrase that has become almost synonymous with "voting while black." Former staff members of the Justice Department's civil rights division say that they were repeatedly overruled when they objected to Republican actions, ranging from Georgia's voter ID law to Tom DeLay's Texas redistricting, that they believed would effectively disenfranchise African-American voters.

The good news is that all the G.O.P.'s abuses of power weren't enough to win the 2006 elections. And 2008 may be even harder for the Republicans, because the Democrats - who spent most of the Clinton years trying to reassure rich people and corporations that they weren't really populists - seem to be realizing that times have changed.

A week before the Republican candidates trooped to Palm Beach to declare their allegiance to tax cuts, the Democrats met to declare their commitment to universal health care. And it's hard to see what the G.O.P. can offer in response.