_____________
 
C O M M E N T A R Y
CHICAGO 
SUN-TIMES
TUESDAY
JUNE 27,
2006
 
PAGE 33 

U.S. leaders try to shift blame

JESSE JACKSON 
 
 
 
 
 

I    t's scoundrel time. Americans
_____in large numbers are looking
_____for change. Those in power are
_____feeling   threatened.   So   the
_____leaders of Congress line up to
appeal not to our better angels but
to our foulest demons. Consider
what the right-wing majority that
controls the Congress has done in
the last week.
      First, they took care of them-
selves and tossed out the most vul-
nerable. They approved a congres-
sional pay raise even as the leaders
of the House of Representatives re-
fused to allow a vote on raising the
minimum wage for America's poor-
est workers. The minimum wage
hasn't been raised in nine years. A
full-time worker cannot lift a family
of three out of poverty. The same
majority that abolished welfare and
required poor, single mothers to go
to work now ensures that the pay
they receive will condemn them to
remain in poverty. They are full of
pious righteousness, but they are
deaf to the basic teachings of Jesus
Christ. Scoundrel time.
     And even as they were condemn-
ing minimum-wage workers to pov-
erty, they were pushing to give the
wealthiest handful of families a $1
trillion tax break. The House passed
and the Senate is now considering a
bill that would essentially gut the es-
tate tax, a tax that applies to only

the wealthiest 1 percent of families
whose estates are worth millions. To
protect this Paris Hilton tax break,
and balance the budget, they have to
cut services to poor, working- and
middle-class Americans. Scoundrel
time.
      Then they shafted those left in
the shadows. The extreme right in
the   House   refused   a   compromise
adopted by the Senate and endorsed
by President Bush on immigration.
The Senate plan would increase en-
forcement at the border and on em-
ployers, but give law-abiding immi-
grants without legal papers a path
for citizenship.
      Instead, Republicans decided to
have show hearings across the na-
tion this summer -- hoping to stoke
sufficient   anti-immigrant   fury   to
gain votes in the fall. And then, in
the   lame-duck   session   already
scheduled for AFTER the elections
_______________________

Shame on us if these
scoundrels don't get the
boot in November.

-- mark my word -- if the president
stands firm, they will pass the same
comprehensive compromise they re-
fused last week. Scoundrel time.
      But that wasn't enough. The
same desperados then blocked re-
newal of the Voting Rights Act.
They objected to provisions suggest-
ing that ballots be printed in lan-
guages spoken by significant minori-
ties in a district. Eager to posture
about English only, they blocked re-
newal of the basic law protecting
voting rights in districts with long
histories of discrimination.
      This is simple mindlessness. Leg-
islators should be encouraging
Americans to learn foreign lan-
guages, not posturing about an Eng-
lish-only country.
      A   renegade   neo-Confederate
fringe balked at federal government
oversight of voting changes embod-
ied in Section 5 of the Voting Rights
Act. All these Southern states have
to do earn exemption from the Vot-
ing Rights Act is to stop the contin-
uing discrimination in voting that
we saw in Florida in 2000, in Ohio
in 2004 and in Georgia today.
      But none of this has been suffi-
cient to calm the nightmares of the
conservative majority, which fears
that Americans may be catching on
to their act. So . . . Sen. Bill Frist --
the multimillionaire leader of Re-
publicans in the Senate who has
voted regularly to benefit the stocks
he holds in what he falsely claimed
was a blind trust -- decided this
week that the Senate should focus
on an amendment to ban flag burn-
ing. Why? No good reason, other
than to allow Republicans to show
they are willing to trample the First
Amendment in order to pontificate
patriotic. Scoundrel time.
      American soldiers are mired in a
bloody occupation of Iraq amid a
civil war of growing violence. And
the DeLay-Frist Congress is com-
mitted to sustaining the occupa-
tion, fighting it with other people's
children and the next generation's
money, while blocking renewal of
the Voting Rights Act, denying an
increase   in   the   minimum   wage,
locking   law-abiding   immigrants
into second-class status, posturing
about flag burning and marriage.
Shame on them for going down in
defeat so shabbily. And shame on
us   if   by   some   chance   these
scoundrels can stoke enough hatred
to save themselves from getting the
boot in November.