Will Peter Roskam Support Libyan Jihad on Switzerland?

On February 28, 2010, in Foreign Policy, Libya, Peter Roskam, Terrorism, by RSR
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Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has made the news in the past few days with his call for a Jihad on the nation of Switzerland. Gaddafi’s call was in response to a recent approval by Swiss voters of a ban on the erection of minarets.

Gaddafi, who’s full title is Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, said the following:

“Let us wage jihad against Switzerland, Zionism and foreign aggression,”

“Any Muslim in any part of the world who works with Switzerland is an apostate, is against Muhammad, God and the Koran.”

Now we believe that the Swiss minaret ban is misguided and an affront to religious liberty. But we deplore the unhinged Gaddafi’s call for holy war.

We are a little curious, however, what our Republican Congressman, Peter Roskam, thinks about Gaddafi’s actions.Voters in the 6th District may not realize that Peter Roskam is personally acquainted with Gaddafi. Roskam traveled to Libya in 2008 as part of a Congressional delegation led by Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan. Listen to Peter Roskam talk about his meeting with Gaddafi on WLS AM’s Don Wade & Roma show on April 2, 2008:

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The same day, Roskam wen ot WIND’s Big John & Cisco Show to talk about Gaddafi and Libya again:

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So why did Roskam go off to Libya and meet with Gaddafi and then come back and begin a tentative rehabilitation of the terrorist leader in these radio appearances?

Well, there’s the oil. They don’t call the GOP the “Gas & Oil Party” for nothing. Libya sits on huge reserves of oil and natural gas and there’s no doubt that the GOP’s clientele in the oil industry want a piece of that action.

And then there’s the campaign contributions. Yes, Gaaddafi’s Libya is a contributor to Roskam’s reelection campaign, albeit inirectly. Records made available by Congress and made accessible in the Sunlight Foundation’s Foreign Lobbying Influence Tracker show that Roskam & his staff had numerous contacts in 2008 with members of the Livingston Group, a lobbying form acting on behalf of the government of Libya, and that that firm, acting on behalf of it’s client, wrote at least 3 checks to Roskam’s re-election campaign. The livingston Group was seeking a normalization of U.S. trade relations with Libya, something that Roskam talks about as being desireable in his radio appearances. The data made available by Sunlight ends with 2008 so we have no knowledge of any ongoing relationship between Roskam and agents of the Libyan government.

Gaddafi in Libya. Uribe in Colombia. Micheletti in Honduras. Roskam sure does seem to have a thing for the world’s thugs and strongmen. We find it not a little disquieting.

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Peter Roskam Still Won’t Denounce Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill

On February 28, 2010, in Gay Rights, Human Rights, Peter Roskam, by RSR
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Peter Roskam has still not signed on as a cosponsor of H. Res 1064 condemning the pending Ugandan anti-homosexuality bill that we first wrote about on February 15th. The bill, currently pending in the Ugandan legislature, is expected to come to a vote sometime early in March. The Ugandan measure criminalizes homosexual acts and applies lifetime imprisonment and even the death penalty in some cases.

H. Res 1064, introduced in the House on February 3rd by Democrat Howard Berman of California, resolves the following:

Resolved, That the House of Representatives–

(1) strongly believes that–

(A) all people possess an intrinsic human dignity, regardless of sexual orientation, and share fundamental human rights;

(B) the ‘Anti-Homosexuality Bill, 2009’ introduced in the Ugandan Parliament, which includes the extreme penalties of death and life in prison, poses a serious threat to the life, liberty, and security of the person and, if enacted, would set a troubling precedent for other countries; and

(C) the requirement that individuals report suspected homosexual individuals to the Ugandan Government could undermine Uganda’s efforts to combat HIV/AIDS, and interfere with care and counseling by family members, doctors, pastors, teachers, and others; and

(2) calls upon the President and the Secretary of State to–

(A) impress upon the Ugandan Government the United States belief in the intrinsic human dignity of all Ugandans, regardless of sexual orientation;

(B) express unequivocal United States opposition to the ‘Anti-Homosexuality Bill, 2009’ introduced in the Ugandan Parliament; and

(C) ensure that resources committed to the global HIV/AIDS response are utilized in a manner that is efficient, effective, and appropriate to the local epidemiology of the disease, including in Uganda.

So why won’t Peter Roskam sign on to show his support. He’s had plenty of time to do so. Why he’s already signed on to a resolution introduced on February 24 recognizing the 189th anniversary of the independence of Greece (yes, the 189th anniversary, not the 15oth, not the 200th) so he could have easily gotten his name on 1064.

We think the reason is partly Roskam’s hyperpartisan nature (he almost never crosses the aisle to support Democratic initiatives, even no-brainers like this one). More importantly, we believe that Roskam has a fundamental hostility to gay rights (he voted against hate crimes legislation, he voted against employment non-discrimination) and a deafness to human rights concerns in general. We also believe that he is sympathetic to the Christian extremists like Rick Warren and Sen James Inhofe who have stirred up an anti-gay hornets nest in Uganda. Both Warren and Inhofe have, after pressure, renounced the Ugandan bill. We think Peter Roskam needs to do the same.

Please contact Peter Roskam and ask him to cosponsor H. Res. 1064. You can reach him at (630) 893-9670 in Bloomingdale or at (202) 225-4561 in Washington.

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Congratulations and Thanks to President Obama and Democrats for Success of Stimulus

On February 17, 2010, in Barack Obama, Economy, Peter Roskam, by RSR
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On the first anniversary of the the signing into law of the $862 billion economic stimulus passage it is appropriate to extend thanks to President Obama and to the Democratic leadership in Congress for its success in bringing the country out of recession and away from the brink of economic collapse that may have rivaled the Great Depression. While recovery is not complete and there are large numbers of  Americans still unemployed, there are many hopeful signs. The economy grew at a rate of 5.7% in the fourth quarter of 2009, the fastest rate in 6 years.

While there is room to argue about what has helped and what hasn’t, there is no excuse for the nasty display of trash talk exhibited today by Peter Roskam and his fellow Republicans, many of whom hypocritically touted stimulus money being spent in their districts after having voted against it.Their behavior today was appalling. They take joy in signs of new economic difficulty hoping that the country’s failure will bring them political success in upcoming midterm elections. But their behavior is destructive to the nation’s morale and destructive to the recovery itself. This is not what they were elected to do. The nation deserves better.

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Peter Roskam and His Party of Lies Poisoned the Wells in the Healthcare Reform Debate

On February 16, 2010, in Economic Justice, Healthcare, Peter Roskam, Peter Roskam's Corporate Agenda, by RSR
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Republican Representative Peter Roskam appeared on the ever “fair and balanced” Fox and Friends this past Friday morning for another of his Fox-facilitated rants on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic partisanship. Take a look:

Roskam’s villainization of Speaker Pelosi and the Democratic efforts to achieve universal healthcare coverage is laughable.

Back in early 2009, after President Obama was sworn in, national support for healthcare reform was high. A CNN/Opinion Research Survey conducted in February 2009 found that 72% of Americans favored an increased roll for the government in healthcare, with 60% believing that the government should provide health insurance or healthcare to all Americans. In a Kaiser Foundation poll conducted the same month, 62% of respondents felt it was more important than ever to take on healthcare reform now and 72% of respondents trusted the recommendations of President Obama on healthcare reform. Even as late as June of 2009, in a Employee Benefit Research Institute poll, 83% of respondents favored a new government healthcare plan that anyone can purchase.

So Americans wanted healthcare reform and they even liked the idea of a public plan, and that left Roskam and the Reublicans in Congress with a dilemma. For political reasons, they needed Obama and the Democrats to fail so that Republican prospects would be better in the 2010 mid-term elections and beyond. And they needed to satisfy their financial backers in the big business lobbies and the healthcare companies that were opposed to reform. Last summer, Peter Roskam’s friend in the Senate, Jim DeMint, famously announced the GOP intent to have healthcare reform become President Obama’s “Waterloo”.

But how do you kill a popular program? The GOP decided to play on its strengths: to lie and sow fear and confusion about Democratic reform plans. And so they embarked on  a campaign of misinformation.

They engaged spin doctor Frank Luntz to craft talking points designed to scare the public about healthcare reform. The organized astroturf groups to spread misinformation and to fund and fan the flames of the paranoid, racist Tea Party movement. They used Republican-controlled Fox News to blare their anti-reform message 24 hours a day. And GOP members took to the airwaves themselves spouting lies about death panels, massive cuts to Medicare, uncontrolled spending, and a government takeover of healthcare complete with rationing.

Peter Roskam has been an enthusiastic participant in all of this. He’s been on local an national media constantly promulgating these lies and even used over a million dollars of taxpayer funds to blanket homes in the district with mailers – an average of about 11 per household in the 3rd quarter – as part of this partisan campaign.

Naturally, people are now suspicious.

Now the GOP has shifted to playing the role of being helpless victims of extreme Democratic partisanship. President Obama has offered a summit on healthcare in response to their pleas to be listened to and now, laughably, they are calling it a trap:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
The Apparent Trap
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes		 Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Peter Roskam and the GOP are liars. They are lying to kill healthcare reform because they want the President to fail and because their big corporate donors don’t want reform. And if their efforts to kill reform succeed, then Americans will continue to suffer and die for lack of coverage. And they are still gleeful about what they have done.

Because the GOP have demonstrated their unwillingness to be honest participants in formulating a workable reform plan, Democrats should make every effort possible to pass reform by reconciliation, ignoring the continued GOP effort to sabotage the process.

Peter Roskam’s conduct in all of this has been reprehensible – adolescent if not sociopathic. I sincerely hope that voters will see that and replace him this fall.

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Peter Roskam Should Co-Sponsor Resolution Condemning Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill

On February 15, 2010, in Gay Rights, Human Rights, Peter Roskam, by RSR
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Represenative Peter Roskam has recently co-sponsored important House resolutions honoring the New Orleans Saints on their Superbowl victory and congratulating Chicago White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle on pitching a perfect game. We can’t imagine, therefore, why it would be any trouble for him to sign-on to a resolution condemning a Ugandan bill that would implement extreme punishments, including the death penalty and lifetime imprisonment, for persons convicted of homosexual activity.

The resolution in question is H. Res. 1064 – Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the “Anti-Homosexuality Bill, 2009″ under consideration by the Parliament of Uganda, that would impose long term imprisonment and the death penalty for certain acts, threatens the protection of fundamental human rights, and for other purposes. It was introduced on February 3rd by Representative Howard Berman, a Democrat from California’s 28th District. As of this writing, only a single member of Mr. Roskam’s Republican party has signed on as a cosponsor – Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida’s 18th District.

The meat of the resolution is as follows:

Resolved, That the House of Representatives–

(1) strongly believes that–

(A) all people possess an intrinsic human dignity, regardless of sexual orientation, and share fundamental human rights;

(B) the ‘Anti-Homosexuality Bill, 2009’ introduced in the Ugandan Parliament, which includes the extreme penalties of death and life in prison, poses a serious threat to the life, liberty, and security of the person and, if enacted, would set a troubling precedent for other countries; and

(C) the requirement that individuals report suspected homosexual individuals to the Ugandan Government could undermine Uganda’s efforts to combat HIV/AIDS, and interfere with care and counseling by family members, doctors, pastors, teachers, and others; and

(2) calls upon the President and the Secretary of State to–

(A) impress upon the Ugandan Government the United States belief in the intrinsic human dignity of all Ugandans, regardless of sexual orientation;

(B) express unequivocal United States opposition to the ‘Anti-Homosexuality Bill, 2009’ introduced in the Ugandan Parliament; and

(C) ensure that resources committed to the global HIV/AIDS response are utilized in a manner that is efficient, effective, and appropriate to the local epidemiology of the disease, including in Uganda.

We think that there is little to complain of in that text – unless, of course, one believes that gay people should be put to death. Peter Roskam has never been friendly to legislation granting equal rights to gay people, but this is a wholly different matter. Mr. Roskam should run, not walk, to get his name added as a co-sponsor. A similar resolution is pending in the Senate.

American right-wing Christian extremists appear to have been at least influential in the origins of the Ugandan bill. These include Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma and Pastor Rick Warren of California’s Saddleback Church and author of The Purpose Driven Life. Both Inhofe and Warren have finally, after considerable adverse press coverage, publicly denounced the Ugandan bill and denied any role in it’s genesis. Rachel Maddow of MSNBC has done some excellent reporting documenting their connections to Uganda and to leaders involved in propagation of the bill. A couple of her videos can be found at the end of this post.

The Oklahoman reported that Republican Senator Inhofe has made at least 20 trips to Africa since 1999 at a cost to taxpayers of more than $187,000, another example of the GOP’s stwewardship of your tax dollars. Inhofe has publically referred to the trips as “a Jesus thing” . According to journalist Jeff Sharlet, both Inhofe and David Bahati, the Ugandan who authored the bill, are members of a secretive Christian group known as “The Family” and Inhofe and Bahati were close.

A number of other members of the House and Senate are involved in The Family, including Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, with whom Peter Roskam traveled to Honduras last fall. After that trip, Roskam remarked that “Senator DeMint is so grounded and wise and I came away just very, very impressed with him.” We are unaware of any direct ties between Peter Roskam and The Family.

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Representative John Shimkus Warns You to Back Big Coal or Die

On February 13, 2010, in Christianity, Coal Industry, Environment, Global Warming, John Shimkus, Peter Roskam, Religious Freedom, Utilities Industry, by RSR
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Another chipper Twitter message from Illinois’ 19th Distric Representative  John Shimkus, Big Coal’s guy in Washington, to his constituents: “the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

We continue to be bothered by Shimkus’ biblical tweeting, not because he is not within his rights to do so or because we don’t like Christians, but because we think it demonstrates profound insensitivity toward his constituents who are not followers of Christ. Shimkus was elected to represent all residents of his district, not just the Christians. His choice of passages continue to reflect, however, an attitude that his spiritual path is the only path with any legitimacy. Perhaps Shimkus could mix it up a bit. (Our Congressman, Shimkus’ buddy Peter Roskam, could sure use to hear some biblical wisdom on the practice of usury or on welcoming the stranger.)

Perhaps as troubling to us is that Shimkus is using his Christian religion to absolve himself from acknowleding the sound science that tells us that our continued dependence on fossil fuels is poisoning our environment threatening the possibility of leaving global ecological catastrophe as our legacy to our children and grandchildren. Shimkus’ warped theology gives him an out to keep on accepting big contributions from the electric utilities, oil and gas companies, and coal companies while using his vote in Congress to advance their interests rather than those of his constituents.

Don’t believe me? Have a peek at these videos U.S. House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment hearings in March, 2009 (preserved thanks to the outstanding progressive news site, Progress Illinois)

From the March 25, 2009 hearing of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, Shimkus’ openening remarks using Genesis 8 and Matthew 24 to reassure us that we don’t need to worry about climate change because the “infallible word of God” tells us that only God will end the world:

Shimkus’ later with Christopher Monckton endorsing Monckton’s ridiculous conclusion that we are a “carbon-starved” planet and that cap & trade will starve plants of their food. Bear in mind as you listen to this drivel  that, in the Cambrian era, during which Monckton asserts our present “carbon shortage” did not exist, the world was a much warmer place and complex life was not found on land.  Shimkus concludes by again stating his biblically-justified belief that the “earth will not be destroyed by a flood”:

And, to wrap it up, because we couldn’t resist, here are the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity’s Clean Coal Carolers doing “Frosty the Coal Man”. ACCCE is a coal and utility industry astroturf group that thought this might be a good idea:

By the way, we understand Shimkus has a Democratic opponent, Tim Bagwell. We don’t know too much about him but 19th District voters might want to check him out.

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