It also does look like Reid and McConnell did agree to submit the GOP ethics package as a point of departure. And the efforts in favor of making it stronger are coming from both sides of the aisle.

There are legitimate reasons in the past to doubt the sincerity and intentions of both parties. But today is the first day of the rest of our lives. I want to participate in helping move both parties towards pragmatism, cooperation, collaboration. Part of this would be to keep both parties from taking the moderate and independent voters for granted. What I can do is to question anything that looks like inappropriate favoritism while celebrating improvements that benefit the middle class. I hope we can share what we learn here at TMV.

I send my opinions to the DCCC and RNCC and the Senate counterparts, since they are sensitive to what voters think about their parties.

while i do not like that samoa is being exempted, i can understand their fears of having the cannery biz being outsourced. evil as it may be, it is a fact.

michigan is giving ford 300 mil to stay in the state…they have the money to fight outsourcing.

6 years the repugs had the opportunity to raise minimun wages…they waited till the last moment, then attached it to a tax cut bill for the wealthy…what big hearts they have.

oh, and george miller wrote the bill, not nancy pelosi…but she is the rights new boogeyman

nice to see politics as usual up in the house.

as for the reform bills not going far enuf…not one…and i mean not one repug has the right to complain about any reform bill

they sat in chambers while their cohorts raped and pillaged with impunity and they did nothing

me thinks they dost protest too much

As for fixing Part D of Medicare, rage, rage against anything that prevents our getting the best deal for our seniors and our tax dollars! I’ll be contacting not only my representatives, but pressing AARP to fight for this as well.

Click here to find your Senators’ phone number, or call the Senate switchboard at (202) 224-3121.

Click here to find your Representative’s phone number, or call the House switchboard at (202) 225-3121.

Paul, I’m with you for strengthening the Senate’s ethics reform legislation. But I believe you’ve misrepresented the debate to say that Harry Reid is “resisting GOP efforts to expand reform”. Indeed the legislation introduced by Reid is exactly what the GOP proposed just this summer.

The Democrats have officially assumed the majority. But the first thing the Senate did was to base their lobbying and ethics reform package on a weak Republican reform bill from last year. It has gone to the floor and will be debated all next week. During this time, amendments to the bill will be considered to either strengthen or weaken it.

But I will certainly join you in this by writing both my own senators and Senator Reid to urge that the Democrats take a stronger position than the Republicans were ever willing to. You can find sample letters on the web site linked above.

And BTW, instead of joining in the debate on this topic, former ethics reformer John McCain has been down on K. Street hitting up the lobbyists for some loot.

Also, its mentioned that the industry virtually runs the island nation, so I am 99% sure that there is some influence peddling going on. I just don’t buy that they can’t handle an increase thats been long overdue for 10 years.

Do you have any similar insight into why Senator Reid is resisting the GOP efforts to expand reforms to ALL earmarks?

But let’s not have a pissing match over who’s more corrupt. Let’s propose a permanent solution, not chipping away at “earmarks”. I have floated mine many times. Strip corporations of the legal fiction of “corporate personhood”. These fake and sociopathic “individuals” are not people and not entitled to a vote, nor “free speech” in the form of corrupting monetary influence (that would be bribery). I want my government to work for the people, in the public interest, not in the service of corporate greed.

House Democrats led by Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.) are aiming to undo a controversial vestige of the Jack Abramoff era in the first 100 hours of the 110th Congress. Miller plans to include language raising wages in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in a broader bill increasing the U.S. minimum wage.

Right, it was Abramoff and DeLay who have been fighting against Democrat-supported wage increase there since 1996. Abramoff, not Pelosi was paid by the Islands to prevent an increase there. The new bill raises minimum wage there, gradually rather than all at once, at the request of the Islands, not Pelosi.

The CNMI government, however, strongly opposes any increase in wages, arguing that local businesses may shut down as a result. In late December, a spokesman for the islands’ current governor, Benigno Fitial, told the Marianas Variety that a wage increase could cause business closures, higher unemployment, and decreased tax revenues. He has a long history with Abramoff, DeLay, and the islands’ garment industry. He has called Abramoff a “close friend� and has long opposed Miller’s efforts to raise labor and immigration standards on the islands. Fitial served in CNMI’s House, where DeLay aides helped him win the speakership. He also has served as vice president of Tan Holdings, a family conglomerate that owns numerous clothing factories on the islands and one of the firms that made up the Saipan Garment Manufacturer’s Association, an Abramoff client.

And you’re trying to make this a Pelosi scandal? Sir, have you no shame? Pelosi included the gradual increase, rather than exempting the islands from the increase, as Republicans wanted. It’s a compromise (look it up, conservatives) that attempts to address the Islands’ concerns by giving them time, but make no mistake here. Pelosi’s team passed a clean bill, cleaner than anything the GOP has done in 12 years.

Of course, what the Democrats meant is that raising the minimum wage in Montgomery County Maryland or San Francisoc does not raise the unemployment becasue the market wage is much higher than the minimum wage. But in a place like Samoa (or El Paso, Texas) raising the minimum wage does lead to unemployment.

I think we shouldn’t be raising the minimum wage in the Marianas for the same reasons it is a bad idea in American Samoa. IMO, the Dems are overcorrecting the problem because of all the publicity the Marianas got as a result of Delay and Abramoff. This huge minimum wage increase will hurt the Marianas more than it will help them. As I said earlier if we were actually discussing minimum wage we would be talking about these things but instead we are talking about how Pelosi is crooked because Starkist is in her district.

One difference might be this: the willingness to hear and act on legitimate complaints.

I get the feeling that they won’t care until 4 months before the next election. But that’s an improvement over Republicans who didn’t give a damn what anyone thought.