But Gus, that's not what you said during the campaign!

During the campaign last fall, I distinctly remember Gus Bilirakis saying that he would listen to the generals to determine what to do in Iraq. I guess he's planning to cherry-pick his generals just like Bushie:

Newly-elected Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Tarpon Springs, who succeeded his father, Michael, said he wasn't yet convinced that Bush is on the right track. He planned to fly back to Florida on Friday night "with a stack of information," talk to military experts and constituents before making up his mind.

http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/local/16451159.htm

Gus, do you read the papers? The generals told Bush no to more troops, so he went out and scrounged up new generals that would tell him what he wanted to hear. Is that what you're doing?

More VoteNoGus and Stem Cell Research

Gus tops the list of House Republicans Playing with Fire over at Swing State Project. According to James L:

many House Republicans representing tight districts are sticking to their guns
on opposing such legislation in defiance of public opinion, common sense and
empathy. I've taken the liberty of compiling all of the worst culprits--those
representing districts with a PVI of less than R+5.0. With Democrats controlling
the legislation in the House, votes like these will be very useful in
determining which Republicans are the most badly out of step with their
districts.

So who tops this list of "all the worst culprits?" None other than our very own:



Bilirakis FL-09 R+4.3

And here is the rest of the list!

Buchanan
FL-13
R+4.1
Camp
MI-04
R+4.0
Chabot
OH-01
R+0.5
Diaz-Balart, M.
FL-25
R+4.4
Feeney
FL-24
R+3.1
Ferguson
NJ-07
R+0.6
Gallegly
CA-24
R+4.8
Garrett
NJ-05
R+4.4
Graves
MO-06
R+4.8
Hayes
NC-08
R+3.0
Keller
FL-08
R+3.0
King
NY-03
D+2.1
Kline
MN-02
R+2.7
Knollenberg
MI-09
R+0.1
Latham
IA-04
D+0.4
Lobiondo
NJ-02
D+4.0
Manzullo
IL-16
R+4.5
McCotter
MI-11
R+1.2
McHugh
NY-23
R+0.2
Mica
FL-07
R+4.1
Miller
MI-10
R+4.4
Murphy
PA-18
R+2.2
Renzi
AZ-01
R+2.2
Reynolds
NY-26
R+2.6
Rodgers
MI-08
R+1.9
Roskam
IL-06
R+2.9
Ryan
WI-01
R+2.2
Saxton
NJ-03
D+3.3
Smith
NJ-04
R+0.9
Tiberi
OH-12
R+0.7
Walberg
MI-07
R+2.5
Walsh
NY-25
D+3.4
Weldon
FL-15
R+4.1
Weller
IL-11
R+1.1

And He Votes NO on Prescription Drug Price Negotiation

H R 4 RECORDED VOTE 12-Jan-2007 2:22 PM
QUESTION: On Passage
BILL TITLE: Medicare Prescription Drug Price Negotiation Act

VOTE PASSED
Bilirakis: NO

Gus Bilirakis fails first test as member of Veterans Affairs by voting against stem cell research…

By accepting a seat on the Veterans Affairs Committee, Gus Bilirakis not only represents the 9th Congressional District in Florida, but also every veteran – including those returning from combat in Iraq.

And he has failed veterans already… by voting against Embryonic Stem Cell Research (ESCR).

He has failed Marines like Cpl. Samuel Reyes Jr.:

Sam Reyes remembers nothing of the suicide bomb attack on a highway outside Fallujah that nearly killed him on the morning of Sept. 6, 2004. Perhaps it's just as well. When medics arrived at the site of the attack, which left 12 Marines dead, they found Reyes sprawled on the road in desperate condition: his arms, back and head were pierced by shrapnel; his left arm was ripped open to the muscle; his stomach and spleen had been sliced; his ribs were broken, his face was badly burned and his tongue had been cut in half.

In the helicopter on the way to a military hospital in Baghdad, the medical team had to defibrillate his heart to keep him alive. Over the next 18 months, during an agonizing recovery, the young Marine gunner underwent several operations and lost 45 pounds. Although his physical wounds have largely healed—save for scattered scars across his forehead and his sense of taste, which has yet to return—the bomb blast left Reyes, now 21, with a less visible, but devastating injury to his brain. Like many Iraq vets who survive the concussive force of an improvised explosive device, or IED, Reyes is now sometimes unable to recognize his friends or family, to recall what he just read or heard, to concentrate or to read faster than the average second-grader…

Like more than 1,700 military personnel wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years, Marine Cpl. Samuel Reyes Jr. is suffering from traumatic brain injury, known in military jargon as TBI, which leaves survivors unable to perform the most basic cognitive functions… (MSNBC.com, Iraq: A Marine’s Experience of Brain Injury, 03/17/2006)

Can ESCR help young Marines like Cpl. Sam Reyes?

… many scientists are hopeful that with enough research, we will be able to harness the abilities of embryonic stem cells to form all of the cell types in the body, so that even whole limbs might be regenerated just as they are in a salamander, and neurons could be replaced and reconnected with each other and the organs they control…

... Drs. Hans Keirstead and Oswald Steward, of the University of California at Irvine, have now shown that some of this secondary damage in the spinal cord can be prevented in animal models by treatment with specialized cells derived from human embryonic stem cells...

... Unfortunately, many of our best biologists, who could be working to make such therapies available, are hampered by Bush administration policies that do not allow federal funds to be used to generate new embryonic stem-cell lines or to work on any lines that have been generated since President Bush established the restrictions, based, as we now know, on his religious beliefs, in August 2001…

… Unfortunately, unless the administration comes to its senses, those treatments may never be available to the maimed veterans in VA hospitals. (US Veteran Brain Injury News: Will stem-cell research help U.S. wounded? by Peter J. Bryant)

Make no mistake about it: voting against ESCR is a vote against combat veterans.

So why did Gus Bilirakis vote against Sam Reyes and thousands of other seriously wounded Iraq combat veterans with brain injuries (not to mention thousands of others suffering from Alzheimer's, MS and other neurological diseases)?

Maybe he is one side of Bush (il)logic… which has been succinctly summarized on the Daily Kos:

Remember, these blastocysts come from fertility clinics. Many thousands are discarded each year. Blaming ESCR for destroying them makes less sense than blaming a kid who uses scrap wood for clear-cutting a forest.

Let's recap the utter absurdity of remaining conservative opposition to Embryonic Stem Cell Research. You're holding a cryogenic container with a blastocyst inside. It's a ball of cells (HT: PoliticAl2008) roughly the size of the period at the end of this sentence. You have a choice of putting it in an incinerator or placing it in a petri dish and using it for research. George Bush and his shrinking base somehow reason, using unknown, convoluted pseudo-logic, that destruction by fire is saving it while the petri dish represents destroying it.

Is that it Gus? You want to incinerate stem cells in order to save them? Explain that logic?

Fortunately 216 Democrats and 37 Republicans voted for ESCR (illegitimate Congressman Vern Buchanan and Adam Putnam were the only other two anti-veteran votes from the Tampa area).

Hopefully this Congress will over-ride the anticipated veto by President Bush… so that veterans like Sam Reyes have some hope for the future.

Meanwhile anti-vet morons like Bilirakis, Buchanan and Putnam need to be held accountable.

Yes on Minimum Wage - No on Stem Cell

H R 2 RECORDED VOTE 10-Jan-2007 5:10 PM
QUESTION: On Passage
BILL TITLE: Fair Minimum Wage Act

VOTE PASSED
Bilirakis - Yes

H R 3 RECORDED VOTE 11-Jan-2007 3:11 PM
QUESTION: On Passage
BILL TITLE: Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act

VOTE PASSED
Bilirakis - No

Dad Gives Gus First Assignment - Combat Military Medically Retired Veterans Act

http://www.navytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2471866.php

Bill would expand concurrent receipt
By Rick Maze Staff writer

Lawmakers wasted no time in introducing legislation to expand the so-called concurrent receipt payments of full disability and retired pay to veterans eligible for both payments.

One of the chief sponsors is a freshman representative, Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., whose father, Michael, had spent decades working on concurrent receipt legislation. Michael Bilirakis retired after 24 years in Congress, having succeeded in breaking the federal government's long-standing opposition to paying full military retired pay and veterans' disability compensation for the same period of service. His son, Gus, elected in November to fill his father's seat, introduced a bill Jan. 5 that would eliminate a phase-in period for concurrent receipt payments for veterans with noncombat disabilities.

Under current law, those with disabilities rated at 50 percent or more and whose injuries are not the result of combat or combat training won't receive full payments until Dec. 31, 2013. Additionally, current law continues to require a dollar-for-dollar offset in retired pay for anyone receiving veterans' disability compensation who has a service-connected, but noncombat, disability of less than 50 percent, or for those who didn't finish 20 years of service.

HR 303, called the Retired Pay Restoration Act, would make anyone who retired from the military, or was separated because of a service-connected disability, eligible to receive both disability compensation and full retired pay.

HR 243, sponsored by Rep. Jerry Weller, R-Ill., would allow people who retired from the military for combat-related disabilities and did not complete 20 years of service to receive both retired and disability pay. This would help those who received disability retirement from the military or who were retired under the early retirement plan used during the military drawdown of the 1990s.

"Once forced out of the service, many are unable to find gainful employment due to their injuries, while at the same time being rated less than their actual disability rate by the Department of Veterans Affairs," Weller said. "They have little to fall back on and deserve better for their sacrifice.

"Now, more than any time in recent history, it is important to remember that our nation has remained strong because of those who have fought and died for our country," said Weller, who sponsored similar legislation last year.

His bill, which he called the Combat Military Medically Retired Veterans Act, has a $496 million price tag over 10 years, which is part of the reason it has not passed. Weller, however, said the cost is "a small price to pay for those who have sacrificed so much."

Committee Assignments - Hot Off The Press!

Weapons of Mass Discussion has posted the Republican House committee assignments today. Our very own Rep. Gus M. Bilirakis (sounds pretty formal, doesn't it?) received the following (wait for it) assignments:

Homeland Security
Veterans Affairs

Yep, our boy Congressman Gus, who couldn't find the Port of Tampa with a road map is going to be on Homeland Security. I feel safer already. Actually, this one makes me damn glad the Dems are in control of Congress.

Come to think of it, I'm a veteran and I don't feel all that great about Gus (did he ever serve in the military?) on Veterans Affairs. Anyway, this is another good reason to be glad the Dems are in control. My, there's lots of those aren't there.

So, there you have them folks. You can keep an eye on these two committees at the Daily Kos Congressional Committee Project among other places.

So Happy Gus watching!