Peter Roskam Displays His Establishmentarian Colors in Co-sponsorship of H.R. 2586

On 05.31.09, In Peter Roskam, Religious Freedom, Veterans, By RSR

On May 21, 2009, just before the Memorial Day recess, Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia introduced H.R. 2586: To prohibit the Secretary of Veterans Affairs from authorizing honor guards to participate in funerals of veterans interred in national cemeteries unless the honor guards may offer veterans’ families the option of having the honor guard perform a 13-fold flag recitation, and for other purposes. Peter Roskam and 43 other members signed on as co-sponsors.

The bill is related to some controversy that has erupted surrounding the recitation that is sometimes made as the flag is being folded by voluntary Memorial Honor Details at the funerals of veterans being interred at National Cemeteries. The recitation consists of 13 points describing a symbolic meaning for each of the 13 folds, many of them religious in nature:

The first fold of our flag is a symbol of life.

The second fold is a symbol of our belief in the eternal life.

The third fold is made in honor and remembrance of the veteran departing our ranks, and who gave a portion of life for the defense of our country to attain peace throughout the world.

The fourth fold represents our weaker nature; for as American citizens trusting in God, it is to Him we turn in times of peace, as well as in times of war, for His divine guidance.

The fifth fold is a tribute to our country, for in the words of Stephen Decatur, “Our country, in dealing with other countries, may she always be right, but it is still our country, right or wrong.”

The sixth fold is for where our hearts lie. It is with our heart that we pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

The seventh fold is a tribute to our Armed Forces, for it is through the Armed Forces that we protect our country and our flag against all enemies, whether they be found within or without the boundaries of our republic.

The eighth fold is a tribute to the one who entered into the valley of the shadow of death, that we might see the light of day, and to honor our mother, for whom it flies on Mother’s Day.

The ninth fold is a tribute to womanhood, for it has been through their faith, love, loyalty and devotion that the character of the men and women who have made this country great have been molded.

The tenth fold is a tribute to father, for he, too, has given his sons and daughters for the defense of our country since he or she was first born.

The eleventh fold, in the eyes of Hebrew citizens, represents the lower portion of the seal of King David and King Solomon and glorifies, in their eyes, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

The twelfth fold, in the eyes of a Christian citizen, represents an emblem of eternity and glorifies, in their eyes, God the Father, the Son and Holy Ghost.

When the flag is completely folded, the stars are uppermost, reminding us of our national motto, “In God We Trust.”

It is not clear to me after perusing the sources I found whether the National Cemetery Administration at some point in 2007 actually banned the recitation or merely clarified its policy. If a ban was indeed instituted, I would certainly regard that as inappropriate. While no longer a religious person myself, I would regard the denial of a Veteran’s family the comforts of their religion in a time of grief as cruel and as a violation of their constitutional rights.

But whatever happened, the current VA policy does not deny Veterans that right. A clarification of the policy issued in October 2007 states the following:

“Honoring the burial wishes of veterans is one of the highest commitments for the men and women of VA,” said William F. Tuerk, VA’s Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs. “A family may request the recitation of words to accompany the meaningful presentation of the American flag as we honor the dedication and sacrifice of their loved ones.”

Traditional gravesite military funeral honors include the silent folding and presentation of an American flag, a rifle salute, and the playing of “Taps.”

The clarification includes the following:

* Volunteer honor guards are authorized to read the so-called “13-fold” flag recitation or any comparable script;
* Survivors of the deceased need to provide material and request it be read by the volunteer honor guards; and
* Volunteer honor guards will accept requests for recitations that reflect any or no religious traditions, on an equal basis.

So what’s the problem? Why H.R. 2586?

The bill is an attempt by the “we are a Christian Nation” crowd to require that this religious ceremony be actively pushed to families without any sensitivity to their own religious beliefs, if any. It is another lame attempt at incremental establishment of religion. It is an affront to all those citizens who do not share their Christian faith and who are also entitled to freedom of religion (or freedom from religion) and have also labored and fought and died to protect our country.  The bill will likely go nowhere as most of these idiotic ideas do but it is still annoying.

H.R. 2586 is not our Congressman’s first venture in the area of religious establishment. You may remember Roskam’s involvement , during his first term, with the wacky 10 Commandments Commission.

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Peter Roskam Lies About Colombia Anti-Union Violence On Fox News Infomercial for TPA, Caterpillar

On 05.31.09, In Colombia, Organized Labor, Peter Roskam, Peter Roskam's Corporate Agenda, By RSR

This is not breaking news, by any means. I just came upon this clip while browsing Roskam’s YouTube collection. It is from back on February 12, 2009.The House Labor and Education Committee had just heard testimony that anti-labor violence was on the increase in 2008 and that the goverment has been, if not complicit in the killings, negligent in the prosecution of those responsible:

“Despite the great emphasis the current administration is placing on security, after a few years of declining murder rates, violence against labor unions showed a steep increase in 2008”, said Jose Luciano Sanin, director of the Escuela Nacional Sindical (National Labor School). “More than 60 percent of the all murdered unionists in the world are Colombians. The murder rate of unionists in Colombia is five times that of the rest of the countries of the world, including those countries with dictatorships that have banned union activity.”

“Despite the great emphasis the current administration is placing on security, after a few years of declining murder rates, violence against labor unions showed a steep increase in 2008”, said Jose Luciano Sanin, director of the Escuela Nacional Sindical (National Labor School). “More than 60 percent of the all murdered unionists in the world are Colombians. The murder rate of unionists in Colombia is five times that of the rest of the countries of the world, including those countries with dictatorships that have banned union activity.”

Human rights advocates in Colombia contend that many of these killings were planned the leadership of the country’s right-wing paramilitary organization, the A.U.C, as well as the Colombian military, and national police. Although some prosecutions are being conducted, witnesses testified, prosecutions often stop short from holding those who conspired, ordered or paid for anti-labor murders accountable.

“It is a systematic pattern that in all of these criminal acts, the public prosecutor is content to determine the responsibility of the material authors, leaving out the intellectual authors, who are the most important, given that they are the ones who sponsor, order the executions, put up the money, and always remain in impunity,” said Jose Nirio Sanchez, a former Colombian special court judge for labor-homicide cases. “Thus, these crimes will not stop, since the true perpetrators are not prosecuted.”

So the very same day, Peter Roskam goes on on FOX to actively promote the U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement, citing what a boon it would be to Caterpillar, one of his major campaign contributors, and saying how labor leaders and labor organizers  in Colombia are less likely to to be subject to violence than the rest of the population.

Every time I think I might like this guy a little, he reminds me what a bastard he is. We have been having a national conversation about whether empathy is a valuable quality in a Supreme Court justice. Even if it you think it is not, it is certainly something whe should expect in our representatives in Congress. Roskam is absolutely blind to human suffering, both at home in his district and in the world. I guess that’s what enables him to sleep at night as he uses our seat in Congress to promote his ruthless pro-corporate agenda.

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Peter Roskam’s Doublespeak on Executive Compensation

On 05.29.09, In Economic Justice, Executive Compensation, Peter Roskam, Peter Roskam's Corporate Agenda, By RSR

Peter Roskam’s been going to a lot of trouble to publicize his media appearances lately on his House website.  Of course they consist mostly of clips from Fox News, Don Wade & Roma, and Big John & Cisco. Roskam doesn’t like to talk to anyone who might ask him a serious question. He just wants a friendly outlet for his talking points – designed to keep his base in a lather about the Dems so that they won’t realize that he’s screwing them in Washington. But I appreciate the time he’s taken to organize this material so its easy for me to find.

This video was interesting and Roskam seems to be pretty proud of it.  Its a clip from Fox News back in March around the time the House voted on H.R. 1586, the measure that would have imposed a 90% tax on bonuses received in 2009 by high-paid employees of companies that received TARP bailout money. Roskam voted with the majority of House members (including about half of the Republicans) to approve the measure. And then he went on Fox News to play the outraged populist while smearing Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and the Obama administration for a mess they inherited from President Bush. I don’t think the measure ever went anywhere – just died in the Senate after AIG’s Chairman urged his employees receiving more than $100,000 to return at least half.

So was this a new Roskam we were seeing? Concerned all of a sudden about the outrages committed by big corporations at the expense of the little people back home in his district? Not so much. This was just Roskam the politician taking advantage of the moment.

Roskam showed his true colors on April 1st, when H.R. 1664, the Grayson-Himes Pay For Performance Act of 2009, came up for a vote. This was a more serious and comprehensive measure to address the issue of excessive compensation, not just for AIG but for other companies receiving bailout money as well:

The Pay for Performance Act of 2009 prohibits the payment of “unreasonable or excessive” compensation, including bonuses that are not based on performance, by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the federal home loans banks, and firms that have received funds under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. The Treasury Secretary must define “unreasonable or excessive” compensation and outline what constitutes an appropriate performance-based bonus using criteria including the stability of a financial institution, ability to repay taxpayer funds, and adherence to appropriate risk management requirements. The prohibition only applies while government payments to the firms are outstanding. Firms subject to the Pay for Performance Act must report their compensation practices to the Treasury Secretary. Finally, the legislation applies bonus prohibitions included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to all employment contracts.

When Roskam figured the folks at home were no longer paying attention, he dropped his faux outrage and voted against the measure. But you won’t see him promoting that fact on his website.

This was not the first time Roskam had stood up for outrageous executive pay. One of Roskam’s few floor speeches during his first term was to fight against a  measure that would have given shareholders a voice in limiting the excessive pay of corporate executives. But I bet you’ll never see that video on his website.

That he uses his office to fight for unlimited executive pay is particularly sad given that Roskam has been an opponent of any efforts to raise the minimum wage for people who actually work for a living and voted against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act earlier this term.

Interestingly, we understand that Peter’s new Press Secretary,Daniel Conston, is an A.I.G. alum. He also worked on the failed campaigns of Fred Thompson and John McCain. Let’s hope this endeavor goes better. But what happened to Matt? Did we convert him?

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A Reply to Tony Perkins and the Persecuting Church

On 05.28.09, In Civil Rights, Gay Rights, Human Rights, Peter Roskam, By RSR

I receive daily messages from Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council, a Christian group “dedicated to the promotion of marriage and family and the sanctity of human life in national policy”. Or in my interpretation a Republican front group designed to distract the gullible with fear of  gay marriage and the like so that they will vote against their own economic interests and support the Republican pro-corporate agenda. Usually these days they are ranting about how gay marriage and the Obama Administration are destroying the world. I subscribe to the newsletter because it helps me keep track of the mischief of the wingnuts. Today’s issue was particularly mean-spirited:

Immigration Law: Leahy’s Passport to Same-Sex ‘Marriage’
Under its cheery name, The Uniting American Families Act, lies yet another attack on marriage at the expense of U.S. taxpayers. As part of the movement to give same-sex partners special privileges, Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) introduced a bill, S. 424, to allow any gay or lesbian foreigner who is currently dating an American to immigrate to the U.S. on the same basis as foreign spouses. Like a married couple, these homosexuals would be eligible for “permanent resident status” under the current immigration law.

Although Leahy frames the policy as an anti-discrimination measure, the truth is, this weakens our federal law and chips away at the unique status of marriage. For the federal government to recognize homosexual pairs in any way, shape, or form is a violation of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). If the liberal leadership wants to repeal DOMA, then they should do so with a recorded vote of Congress–not let it just die of a thousand cuts.

“Homosexual pairs”? These are human beings you ass.

This is just plain inhuman. Telling people that they can’t marry then telling them they can’t be together because they’re not married. Tony Perkins is just plain evil.

And of course we can’t expect any help from our own Congressman Roskam. Roskam has already shown himself to be an opponent of equality for LGBT people. Don’t expect his vote if S.424 makes it to the House.

So, Tony Perkins, this video is for you (Hat tip to Turning Left and to the video’s creators. It is really cute).

Fuck you, Tony. And Fuck you, Peter for your votes on ENDA and hate crimes.

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Anti-Labor Peter Roskam Abandons Air Safety in Favor of Union Busting

On 05.27.09, In Air Safety, Organized Labor, Peter Roskam, By RSR

Peter Roskam has, from time to time, styled himself as an advocate for air safety. You may recall how in late 2007,  Roskam sent a much-publicized letter to the FAA’s Henry Krakowski, expressing  concern about the adequacy of staffing levels in the air traffic control system in the light of a couple of then recent near misses in the skies surrounding O’Hare Airport.

Roskam was correct in his assertion that there have been staffing issues . Those problems are a legacy of his own Republican party’s union busting activities.

In 1981, Republican President Ronald Reagan fired the majority of  U.S. air traffic controllers during a strike of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) for better pay and working conditions and a work week more conducive to safety.  Because so many of the current population of controllers were hired at the time of the PATCO strike, a large number are now approaching retirement age.

In 2006, under Republican President George Bush, the Bush FAA  further complicated the matter.  When an impasse developed in contract negotiations with the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (the successor to PATCO), the Bush Administration imposed a new contract that included staffing cuts and lower starting pay for controllers. The Bush intervention prompted a surge in retirements that caught the FAA unprepared.

As in many areas of government, the Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress are now left to clean up the mess left by the Republicans ideological misadventures.

This past week, the House voted on H.R. 915, the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act of 2009. The bill provides funding for the FAA’s operations and for for improvements to the air traffic system through 2012. According to Rep. Jim Oberstar, Chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,

The bill contains several provisions critical to improving air safety. It directs the FAA to increase the number of aviation safety inspectors, creates an independent Aviation Safety Whistleblower Investigation Office within the FAA, provides funding for runway safety programs, calls for additional inspections of overseas aircraft repair stations, and requires the FAA to study and update its regulations regarding flight-crew fatigue.

The bill also attempts to rectify the unfair treatment that air traffic controllers have received at Republican hands. Again, according to Rep. Oberstar:

It is extremely important that there be a fair resolution of the controllers’ concerns. The best technology in the world will not improve our air traffic control system if the workforce operating this technology is distracted by resentments over unfair treatment. H.R. 915 mandates a new dispute resolution process, patterned after Postal Service regulations, to make it clear that labor-management disputes between FAA and its organized employees are governed by a fair and impartial process, including binding arbitration. This new process would apply to the ongoing dispute between the controllers and FAA. The Obama administration has announced that it will begin negotiations with Air Traffic Controllers to resolve this dispute. I am hopeful that this will begin a process leading to a new contract acceptable to both parties.

H.R. 915 also amends the Railway Labor Act (RLA) to clarify that employees of an “express carrier” shall only be covered by the RLA if they are employed in a position that is eligible for certification under FAA’s rules, such as mechanics or pilots, and they are actually performing that type of work for the express carrier. All other express carrier employees, such as truck drivers and baggage handlers, would be governed by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). This change would remove the disparity in current law that Federal Express drivers are governed under the RLA, which requires organization for collective bargaining on a nationwide basis, while drivers for UPS and other express carriers are governed by the NLRA, which permits organization on a local basis.

The provision in the RLA that Oberstar refers to is apparently a result of FEDEX’s past efforts to thwart organization of its employees.

H.R. 915 passed the House on Thursday 5/21 by a vote of 277-136, mostly along party lines. The bill must now be considered by the Senate.

Peter Roskam voted against H.R. 915.  The strength of his ideological stance against organized labor trumped whatever concern for air safety he may possess.

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Peter Roskam Throws Hissy Fit on House Floor Over Taxes on Dead Rich Folks

On 05.22.09, In Economic Justice, Estate Tax, Middle Class, Peter Roskam, Poverty, By RSR

Received a Tweet from Peter Roskam  wanting to know what I thought about his floor speeech regarding the estate tax, which Peter and other wingnuts like to call the “death tax”.

Well. I always want to do my part to help my Congressman so here goes.

First off,  I was  pleased to hear him name publicly one by one the interest groups to which he is beholden: U.S. Chamber, National Association of Manufacturers, etc.

I was also impressed by Peter’s emotion, the passion that this issue arouses in him. Thought his hairpiece was going to fly off at the end ;) .

What troubles me deeply, however, is that it it is only taxes on rich people that can get Peter aroused this way.  Not homeless veterans on the streets of DuPage County, not children in Wood Dale without adequate health care, not torture and illegal detention authorized by the President and Vice President in Washington. Nope. Just taxes on rich white people in Wheaton, or in this case, rich dead white people in Wheaton.

The truth about the estate tax, which Peter Roskam is unwilling to share with you, is that the estate tax will affect only 0.24 percent of all people who die in 2009, individuals who die with an estate valued at $3.5 million or more or married couples (heterosexual) with an estate of $7 million or more. What’s really sad is that Peter Roskam has chosen to use his seat in Congress, OUR seat in Congress, to represent the financial interests of only that tiny fraction of the residents of his district.

Repealing the estate tax, as Roskam, would have us do, would cost billions in reduced revenue, necessitating either increased taxes on the poor and middle class or major reductions in spending. Cuts to the bloated defense budget, of course, are off limits, to Peter and his Republican colleagues, so cuts would have to be made for things like college financial aid, food stamps, Medicare, veterans services, childrens’ health care – all those programs to help poor and middle class families that Peter has fought against so vigorously during his time in office. More than likely, it would be a combination of both increased taxes and reduced services that would be required to give this expensive gift to a few very wealthy dead people.

So, thanks, Peter for letting me know about your speech.  I honestly have to say though that I didn’t care for it much.

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