Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Scott Brown, We are beginning to wonder about you. Wake up!

The following from: Fleming and Hayes

Scott Brown is Breaking Campaign Promises; Here Are All the Ways You can Contact Him.

"The last stimulus bill didn’t create one new job,” Brown said in response to a question about a jobs bill pending in the Senate. He added that the stimulus may have retained some jobs.  
-Scott Brown
February 4th
"I'll be the 41st vote, not the 60th vote,"-Scott Brown February 4th
“This Senate jobs bill is not perfect. I wish the tax cuts were deeper and broader, but I am voting for it because it contains measures that will help put people back to work. ... I hope for improvements in that process going forward.”
-Scott Brown February 22nd
 
It didn't take Scott Brown very long to break one of his most important campaign promises and even his own statements by voting to advance another Stimulus Bill: 
H.R. SUMMARY: JOBS FOR MAIN STREET ACT OF 2010

The procedural vote taken today was to advance the following amendment onto the floor for debate instead of outright killing it. (Thus being the 60th vote, not the 41st)
AMENDMENT TO THE SENATE AMENDMENT TO H.R. 2847While this was only a procedural vote and the bill still hasn't passed the Senate, allowing this bill onto the floor leaves the door wide open for more back room deals and outright bribery.  If you don't think this is likely to happen we offer the following from Politico:
"As late as Monday afternoon, leadership aides and key Senators were uncertain whether Reid would get the two Republican votes necessary to help the legislation clear a key procedural hurdle. But Reid clearly made enough promises to key Republicans to win them over.

Voinovich, for example, was happy to see the highway funding in the bill.

“I am pleased that this bill sends the message to struggling states like Ohio that they can move forward with shovel-ready transportation projects – projects that will put people back to work quickly and, the results of which, will contribute to economic growth,” Voinovich said.
"
 
Senator Brown isn't alone with his vote, as he stands side by side with Christopher Bond of Missouri, George Voinovich of Ohio, and Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, both of Maine.

We strongly suggest that everyone gets in touch with these 5 Senators and ask them to vote "NO!" on this bill when it gets to the Senate floor.  However as Scott Brown's website is conveniently unfinished and his phone mailbox is full we encourage EVERYONE who supported him through the past campaigns to reach out to him through these means:
Washington, D.C. Office:
317 Russell Senate Office Building,
District of Columbia 20510-2101
Phone:               (202) 224-4543         (202) 224-4543
Fax: (202) 224-2417
Boston Office:
2400 John F. Kennedy Federal Building
Boston, Massachusetts 02203
Phone:               (617) 565-3170         (617) 565-3170
Fax: (617) 565-3183

While there is no published email address to reach him, there is a way to FAX his offices from your computer.  Go to 
http://faxzero.com/ and enter in his fax number and contact information as well as your own if you choose, then simply type as if you were sending him an email.  Take pride in knowing that instead of simply ignoring an email, they have a tangible piece of paper they can hold in their hands.

Let's all take a moment to remind Senator Brown that it took a nation to get him elected and we will not forget his own words.
Our thanks to Gary Dykstra for the fax website.
_______________

And This From The Washington Post...tsk, tsk, tsk, naughty, naughty, naughty.

   Can't you see Scott, anything that makes Harry Reid happy has to have something wrong with it.  Wake up!  The government has no business in the health care business...wake up!


From the bluest of states, a red senator of a different color
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 23, 2010; A02


 

So much for the Massachusetts Miracle.   The election of Republican Scott Brown to Ted Kennedy's Senate seat was supposed to bring a seismic change to national politics. It did just that Monday night, but not in the way Republicans had hoped.
It was almost time to vote on the Senate jobs bill, the first major vote since Brown's arrival. Republicans were counting on their new member to be their "41st vote," the number needed to sustain filibusters and shoot down any and all Democratic proposals.
Brown, his desk in the back corner, was the only Republican in the room as Senate Majority Harry Reid (D-Nev.) offered a final denunciation of the GOP before the vote. "My friends on the other side of the aisle are looking for ways not to vote for this," he said, accusing them of putting "partisanship ahead of people."
As Reid spoke, Brown was leafing through a Senate face book, learning to recognize his new colleagues. As soon as the vote was called, he strode quickly into the well and interrupted the clerk as he read the roll.
"Yes," Brown said quietly, and then, having become Reid's first vote, he rushed out of the room before Republican colleagues arrived. He stepped into the hallway, then waited for reporters to assemble around him.
"I'm not from around here," he said. "I'm from Massachusetts."
Back inside the Senate chamber, Maine's Susan Collins, a Republican moderate, followed Brown's lead and voted yes. The floodgates opened, and the GOP filibuster was broken with two votes to spare.
It was a good way to celebrate George Washington's birthday.
Three hours before the jobs-bill vote, the Senate chamber opened with its 117-year tradition of reading Washington's Farewell Address on his birthday. The current lawmakers evidently didn't think much of the tradition, for they assigned the reading to Roland Burris, the senator from Blagojevich. Total number of senators at their desks for the reading: zero.
That's too bad, for Washington's words were never more relevant. "The common & continual mischiefs of the spirit of Party are sufficient to make it the interest and the duty of a wise People to discourage and restrain it," Burris read, haltingly, on the floor Monday afternoon. "It serves always to distract the Public Councils and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill founded Jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another."
The Senate then moved to validate Washington's concern by taking up the jobs bill. The measure had been rolling toward swift and easy passage -- a tally of 80 votes had been anticipated -- because of a bipartisan deal negotiated between the top Democrat and Republican on the Finance Committee.
But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid upended the deal and replaced the bipartisan deal with a smaller bill favored by Senate liberals. Republicans, predictably, withdrew their support. And Democrats, predictably, went to the Senate TV studio to denounce the Republicans.
The ferociously partisan Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) explained why "it's sometimes more important to force a clear vote" rather than getting in the "swamp of negotiating" with Republicans. "I think continuing to force votes is the prerogative of the majority."
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) went to the Senate floor to inform Republicans that "there comes a time when you've got to put politics aside."
With Republican leaders vowing opposition to Reid's version of the bill, it appeared that Democratic leaders had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. And it was a pointless snarl. Democrats scuttled a bipartisan deal full of provisions they supported, just to pick a fight with Republicans. Republicans, furious that their good-faith negotiations had been ignored, opposed the pared-down version of the bill even though they favored its contents.
It was, in other words, just what Washington warned about 214 years ago when he cautioned against "the baneful effects of the Spirit of Party."
"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages & countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism," the first president wrote. "But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism."
One man who did seem to get that message from the ages was Brown, who it appears hasn't been in Washington long enough to be intoxicated by the Spirit of Party.
Moments before the vote, Brown's office sent out word that he planned to side with the Democrats, and some last-minute buttonholing by Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) evidently didn't change his mind.
"It's not a perfect bill, but it's certainly a bill that I felt comfortable enough to vote on, because it's the first step in creating jobs," Brown said. "And anytime you can make a small step, it's still a step."
Back on the Senate floor, the Democratic leader admired his unexpected gift for Washington's birthday. "Whether this new day was created by the new senator from Massachusetts or some other reason," said Reid, "I'm very, very happy."

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