Mariana Islands Republican Values

What more can you say about those highly moral Republicans that hasn't already been said?

Earlier today we noted that the Republican Senate candidate from Colorado, Bob Schaffer, told the Denver Post that America should adopt an immigration and guest labor policy modeled on that of the Mariana Islands (aka the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands) -- whose guest worker program is notorious around the world for forced abortion, slavery, child prostitution, sex trafficking, beatings, female workers kept in shacks with no plumbing surrounded by barbed wire and other fun stuff.

Well? You could say Jack Abramoff...

TPM Reader AK points out that the folks at ProgressNowAction have done a little digging. And it seems that that back in 1999, when Schaffer was serving in Congress, he went on one of those junkets to the Islands put together by none other than disgraced lobbyist and now-federal inmate Jack Abramoff.

But Jack Abramoff is nothing new when it comes to republicans. There is more on this over at TPM.

Torture Is Illegal

And these are all criminals:

ABC News reported tonight that President Bush’s most senior and trusted advisers met in “dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House” beginning in 2002 to approve the use of “combined” interrogation techniques (the joint use of harsh interrogation techniques). Those tactics included whether detainees “would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding.”

Members of the National Security Council’s Principals Committee — Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, George Tenet, and John Ashcroft — approved the use of these techniques. “Sources said that at each discussion, all the Principals present approved.” According to ABC’s report, Ashcroft indicated he was troubled by the meetings:

According to a top official, Ashcroft asked aloud after one meeting: “Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly.”

Those people need to be locked up...

The Widening Income Gap In Connecticut

Via rba at ePluribus Media:

Lisa Lambert/AP: Poor get poorer as recession threat looms: report
In Connecticut, incomes of the wealthiest 20 percent are eight times those of the poorest 20 percent, according to the report. New York has the greatest disparity, with incomes of the top 20 percent 8.7 times the bottom ones, followed by Alabama, where the top are 8.5 times the bottom.

Just when some thought the economy was getting better in Connecticut:

Only recently has Connecticut begun recovering from the downturn of six years ago, according to Douglas Hall, associate director of research for Connecticut Voices for Children, who participated in the call. By August 2007 the state gained enough jobs to make up for those lost in the last recession, he said, but now it is losing them again.

Buckle up Nutmeggers... It is going to be a rough ride.

The Extreme Ignorance Of Chris Shays

Via Connecticut Bob:

Yesterday Rep. Chris Shays admitted he never read the document that the Bush administration used to justify the invasion of Iraq. Over five years later, Mr. Shays still hasn't gotten around to it.

Let the congressman tell you in his own words in this brief video...

Probably the most important vote he has ever had to make in his political career and he couldn't bother to read the actual reports on the situation? 5 years later and he still hasn't managed to read the report?

ctblogger at MLN had an update to add to this:

Make sure to share this with your local print and broadcast media outlets. That Shays failed to read the intelligence before leaping into the Iraq war – even though he insisted at the time that he had to vote against his constituents because, in his words, "I know too much about this threat" – is genuinely newsworthy.