Stretching the Analogy

Yesterday, Mike Rogers gave his opening statement on health care reform. At 0:54, he asks

Why would we punish the part that's working to cover the part that's not? It's like taking a queen-sized sheet and trying to put it over a king-sized bed. I will guarantee you the corners are gonna come up.

This sounds familiar... Remember his criticisms of updated CAFE standards?

I have long had concerns with the CAFE system. It is old, it is arbitrary, and it has proven time and time again that you really can't make a fat person skinny by mandating smaller pants sizes. (5/3/06)

Mr. Chairman, you know you cannot make a fat guy skinny by mandating smaller pant sizes. (4/20/05)

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), saying it would force automakers to make smaller cars, likened the effort to “trying to limit obesity by mandating smaller pants. (April 2003, p. 41)

It's good to see that Mr. Rogers has updated his ill-fitting textile analogy to avoid offending any fat guys.

Common Ground

You may recall that the Neighborhood has called Mike Rogers out on his, ah, creative approach to earmarks and the budget on more than one occasion.

Well, it's not just us Neighborhood liberals who are unimpressed with Rogers' tendency to two-step. The Right Stuff takes an equally dim view of Mr. Rogers and his colleagues on their "creative" approach to the climate bill.

I guess the other ones decided to stuff their earmarks in realizing that they could have it both ways: Satisfy the constituency while voting against cap and trade. BUSTED!!! [skip]

Mike Rogers (R-MI) -- Number of Earmarks: 2 -- Total: $1,500,000

• *The Consortium for Plant Biotechnical Research, Inc., St. Simon's Island, GA - Consortium for Plant Biotechnical Research -- $1,000,000
• Lansing Board of Water and Light, Lansing, MI - energy-efficient drinking water system -- $500,000

The asterisk on the biotech research project indicates that Mr. Rogers was a co-sponsor.

Now, The Right Stuff will never, ever be accused of liberal tendencies (it features a countdown of "Days Left in This Socialist Administration" and quite a few posts on President Obama's "fake" birth certificate).

But it's interesting that both left and right can agree: hypocrisy isn't pretty. True conservatives dislike this earmark finagling as much as us libruls here in the Neighborhood.

Summer Slump

Well, we haven't heard much about Miranda rights for terrorists lately.

The money seems to be coming in OK for Mr. Rogers' NRCC Patriot pals.

There have been a few scary threats about the impact of cap-and-trade legislation, but they're pretty much preaching to the choir. And as Mr. Rogers thunders that cooling the planet will "sink" Michigan's economy, he seems to forget that our state has lost over 600,000 jobs in the last eight years -- pretty much tracking with his tenure in Washington.

What, exactly, HAS Mr. Rogers been doing in D.C.?

The only jobs he's created are for lobbyists and incumbent Republican Congressmen.

The only health care coverage he's supported has been his own.

And the Knowlegis Power Rankings show that no one is paying much attention to his ideas and opinions:

Mike Rogers' Power Score is 16.30

* average score for the Michigan delegation? 25.9

* ranking Republican John Boehner? 56.88

His rank in the House is 214th out of 435.

Don't hold your breath for big things from Mr. Rogers in 2009.

Job Description

Roll Call has dubbed Mike Rogers as the NRCC's "Top Cop," in view of his untiring efforts as Incumbent Retention Chairman for the GOP.

Here in the Neighborhood, we've heard about Mr. Rogers' work as Incumbent Retention Chair -- and we know that this is NOT the kind of job creation program needed in Michigan's 8th Congressional District. A member of the United States House of Representatives is supposed to, well, represent the voters of his or her district.

Rogers began his mission in February, when he started one-on-one meetings with more than 70 of his most vulnerable colleagues to set up individualized campaign goals. [skip]

According to a senior NRCC official, Rogers meets weekly with Boehner, Sessions and Cantor to discuss incumbent retention. [skip]

Rogers meets with NRCC Incumbent Retention Director Bob Honold several times a week. He keeps tabs on every Member’s progress, including political matters such as their call time, volunteer recruitment and local press

Hmmm. I don't recall Mr. Rogers taking the time to meet with more than 70 of the most vulnerable auto industry workers in our district, or sitting down regularly with local business owners.

Let's step back and look at the bigger picture for the first few months of this year:

January 2009:

• The annual salary of House members increased to $174,000, not including COLA, health insurance or pension benefits.
• Michigan lost another 69,000 jobs and led the nation in unemployment (11.6%, the worst since May 1984).

February 2009:

• Mr. Rogers took time out from fighting against the stimulus package to host a meet & greet for freshman GOP members and 150 PACs.
• Michigan unemployment increased to 12.0%

March 2009:

• Mike Rogers hosted a $1,000-a-plate fundraiser for Joseph Cao (R-LA).
• Michigan unemployment rose to 12.6%

April 2009:

• Mr. Rogers decided that the tobacco industry was doing a great job and didn't need to be regulated; he also turned up his nose at national service programs.
• Michigan's unemployment? Up again, to 12.9%

May 2009:

• Chrysler entered bankruptcy.
• The NRCC picked their ten "Patriot" candidates - vulnerable incumbents who need help with fundraising. Mr. Rogers called the fundraising competition "natural and healthy."
• Michigan's unemployment rate rose to 14.1%.

June 2009:

• GM filed for bankruptcy.
• Mike Rogers spent his time in D.C. proposing dead-end amendments to the climate change bill and boldly supporting crucial legislation like establishing National Corvette Day and National Pet Week.
• Rogers also co-hosted the first "Patriot Day" fundraiser on June 24th, where the ten House member "Patriots" raised $90,000 - $100,000 each.

It will be interesting to see Mr. Rogers' priorities during the next 15 months -- will he focus on fundraising for his Patriots, or jobs and healthcare for his constituents?

2010: Coming up fast

Well, the second quarter of 2009 has closed and we're waiting to see the goodies that were deposited into Mike Rogers' war chest.

In the meantime, Mike Rogers was in great financial shape for 2010 at the end of Q1.

He reported $335,629 in donations for 2009-2010 for his campaign committee and his MIKE-R PAC (Minority Initiative to Keep Electing Republicans).

(Try to contain your surprise when you learn that Abbott Labs, Astra-Zeneca Pharmeceuticals and Pfizer are three of the top 5 contributors to MIKE-R PAC...)

Mr. Rogers had $202, 968 cash on hand.

He hasn't kept it all to himself, though -- he gave the Michigan Republicans a nice chunk of change ($40,000 worth).

Stay tuned for Mr. Rogers' Adventures in PAC-Land, Q2.

Sick and Tired

Mike Rogers is a Serious Guy when it comes to health care. He warned us about those liberals who wanted to take Grandma's oxygen tank -- and her "choice" in health care coverage while they're at it.

Well, Mr. Rogers is back with a regurgitated plan for health care reform. He gets points for alliteration ("Costs," "Control," "Choices" and "Cures"), but other than that it's a tired retread of GOP slogans that do nothing to make realistic changes in health care policy.

In a breathtaking reversal (or re-reversal), Mr. Rogers now supports expanding the SCHIP program.

Important safety-net programs - like Medicaid and SCHIP - should be strengthened by expanding premium assistance programs which give low-income families new insurance options.

(You may recall that Mr. Rogers spent most of 2007/2008 fighting tooth and nail against expanding SCHIP, the program which helps working families to pay for their children's health care coverage.)

He also trots out the GOP 85/15 talking point -- that the 85% of Americans who are insured should not have to face higher costs or less choice to cover the 15% who are uninsured.

On the face of it, this sounds reasonable.

It sounds reasonable until you read the recent American Journal of Medicine study which finds that in 2007, 62% of all bankruptcies were linked to medical expenses -- and nearly 80% of the folks who filed had health insurance.

So much for choice and control.

Speaking of control, can you name the two industries which have been the top contributors to Mr. Rogers during his Congressional career? No points for guessing health care and insurance; the pharmaceutical industry is in fifth place for donations to the Rogers cash machine.

Guess we shouldn't expect too much from Mr. Rogers in this summer's health care debates.

Still Bananas Over Miranda

A few weeks ago, Mike Rogers was making the right-wing news rounds with dire predictions about the dangers of Mirandizing Afghan detainees.

More recently, Mr. Rogers has been spreading the "news" in the local media, like WHMI and the Press & Argus.

"As an American citizen, it chills my blood to think that these foreign fighters from other nations who enter Afghanistan to kill our soldiers and allies are being given the same rights as American citizens accused of a crime," Rogers said in a statement.

CQ Politics' Jeff Stein was intrigued by this story of chilled blood (not to mention the chaos), so he talked with the Michigan Republican about his concerns.

Turns out that Mr. Rogers, on his most recent taxpayer-funded trip to Bagram Air Base, sat in on a meeting to which he had not been invited:

“I’m telling you, it was being implemented,” added Rogers, who slipped his minders at Bagram long enough to join a regular morning meeting of FBI, CIA, Defense Department and other U.S. agency personnel involved in interrogations.

“I saw it. I talked to people who were doing it,” he said.

(As Rhett Butler once noted, eavesdroppers often hear highly entertaining things...)

Stein interviewed some very credible people who were not going bananas over a policy which has been in place since 1998.

“Whether a person is Mirandized or not, he can remain silent,” Marion “Spike” Bowman, a former senior legal counsel to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III , pointed out for me.

“Interestingly, with a good interrogator, most do not,” added Bowman, who was also at one time a legal adviser to the Navy’s elite counterterrorism unit, SEAL Team Six.

“A Mirandized person may be interrogated — whether he responds is a different matter,” Bowman said. “Some, in fact, related details that ratted out relatives. The Arab culture is not like ours and the ‘right to remain silent’ is not a part of their culture.”

FBI Director Robert Mueller wrote to Reps. Rogers and Wolfe (R-VA), stating that there has been "no policy change and no blanket instruction" issued for FBI agents to Mirandize detainees overseas.

For detainees held in military custody overseas, approval by the Department of Justice is required before Miranda warnings may be given. [skip]

There are cases in which FBI agents have provided Miranda warnings to persons captured and held overseas, at Bagram and elsewhere. In those cases, a determination was made that a prosecution in an Article III court may be in the interest of national security and that providing Miranda warnings (modified to take into account the overseas location of the detainee) was, therefore, desirable to maximize the likelihood that any resulting statements would be admissible at trial. In practice, Miranda warnings have been provided to Bagram detainees in only a small handful of cases out of over 4,000 individuals detained and interrogated by the FBI.

Faced with this, um, discrepancy between Mr. Rogers' allegations and statements by the Director of the FBI and senior DOJ officials, Stein asked the question that so many media types have been dodging:

I asked the former G-man if he was calling the head of the FBI a liar.

He paused.

"I don't know what Mueller's doing," he said. "There's certainly a contradiction between this and what Mueller told me."

If things are really as bad as this self-styled national security expert (and former FBI Guy) says, shouldn't he be leading a House investigation instead of playing games with nonsense amendments?

If It's On Fox, It Must Be True!

The FauxNews machine is working overtime to promote Mr. Rogers' recent trip to Afghanistan.

According to Mr. R., the Obama administration is "creating chaos in the field among the CIA, FBI and military personnel" by "quietly ordering the FBI to start reading Miranda rights to suspected terrorists at U.S. military detention facilities in Afghanistan."  

[It would be interesting to determine the amount of time Mr. Rogers spends "in the field" relative to "inside the gates of Bagram Air Base."]

Chaos in the field?  That's a pretty serious statement.  

Yet U.S. military commanders told Fox that soldiers aren't Mirandizing anyone, and a DOJ spokesman stated that

"There has been no policy change nor blanket instruction for FBI agents to Mirandize detainees overseas," he said in a statement, adding, "While there have been specific cases in which FBI agents have Mirandized suspects overseas, at both Bagram and in other situations, in order to preserve the quality of evidence obtained, there has been no overall policy change with respect to detainees."

It's worth noting that no other mainstream news source seem to be reporting this. Other than the usual suspects in the right-wing blogosphere, no one else is talking about it.  Some conservative bloggers are hedging a bit:  

More confirmation is needed before a general outcry takes hold 

Even The Weekly Standard has held off on a hissy fit: 

A lawyer who has worked on detainee issues for the U.S. government offers this rationale for the Obama administration’s approach. “If the US is mirandizing certain suspects in Afghanistan, they’re likely doing it to ensure that the treatment of the suspect and the collection of information is done in a manner that will ensure the suspect can be prosecuted in a US court at some point in the future.”

That's right, folks: evidence given under duress [i.e., torture] is inadmissible in a court of law. You can't prosecute the bad guys without evidence.  Ergo, all law enforcement professionals -- from local cops to the FBI -- know that they need to play by the rules when capturing and interrogating suspects or they risk letting dirtbags walk out of the courtroom.

Approaching terrorism as a law enforcement issue instead of a military issue isn't a new idea. The United States tried and convicted Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.  Abdel-Rahman was sentenced to life in prison and has been sitting in SuperMax since 1996.  The British, no strangers to fighting terrorism, have successfully prosecuted such cases through their court system for years.

Mr. Rogers once again turns to the emotional anecdote in lieu of sensible policy.  If he's genuinely concerned about troop safety and national security, and convinced of the facts, why isn't he shouting this from the rooftops instead of selectively whispering into friendly ears?  

UPDATE:  The American Prospect has a post on Gen. Petraeus' press conference, where he stated that 

"This is the FBI doing what the FBI does," Petraeus replied. "These are cases where they are looking at potential criminal charges. We're comfortable with this." He denied that his soldiers and other relevant American agents are reading Miranda rights to detainees, some of whom are detained as enemy combatants, while others are high-value anti-terror targets. (A U.S. federal court recently ruled that some Bagram detainees have the same habeas rights as prisoners in Guantanamo Bay.)

While it seems that Rogers (and the Fox News correspondent) are happy to play up fears that the Obama administration is soft on terror, Petraeus' didn't seem to concerned by the DOJ practice, which the DOJ denies began with the current administration. In another portion of his speech, discussing the comprehensive strategy launched against Al Qaueda in Iraq as an indirect model counter-terror operations in Afghanistan, Petraeus noted the importance of counter-insurgency amoung detainee populations and the need for releasing certain detainees to help win over the populace, noting that by the end of his time in Baghdad the recdivism rate among released detainees was a very impressive 1 percent.  [emphasis added]

General Petraeus says that his troops aren't Mirandizing detainees -- and he's not concerned about the FBI doing so.  Mr. Rogers says that IS happening.  Does that mean the four-star general is "soft on terror," or does that mean the congressman is a manipulator "misinformed"?

Your Turn, Mr. Rogers

During the recent House Energy & Commerce committee debate on climate change legislation, Mike Rogers energetically offered up an amendment to tie U.S. adoption of cap-and-trade carbon policy to similar action by China and India. 

His amendment would allow the U.S. to get out of the cap-and-trade plan if India and China -- two of the world's biggest sources of greenhouse gases -- did not agree to similar limits.

From Bloomberg:

The provision focusing on China and India, offered by Republican Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan, would have allowed greenhouse-gas emission limits in the U.S. only if those two countries adopted standards that were “at least as stringent.” The committee rejected the proposal on a 36-23 party-line vote.

Fred Upton also chimed in:

 "If we don’t demand that they have the same kind of criteria that we do, we’re going to see those jobs go,” Upton said. “We can put a gun to China’s head” to push them to adopt pollution limits, he said."

Well, it looks as though guns won't be necessary.  The lead story in today's NYT Business section?

China Is Set to Plan Strict Gas Mileage Rules

Yep, China is getting ready for standards even stricter than those proposed by President Obama, including improving fuel economy an additional 18% by 2015.  On top of that, 

Cars with small fuel-sipping engines are now subject to a 1 percent sales tax, while sports cars and sport utility vehicles with the largest engines are subject to a 40 percent sales tax. Stricter fuel economy standards have won support from four interest groups within the Chinese government, said a Chinese government official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue.

It's clear that we need to seriously address global warming. in addition, there are some pretty compelling economic reasons for the United States to lower its greenhouse gas emissions. It will reduce our dependence on foreign oil, an idea that so excited Mr. Rogers that he made an animated video.  Increasing competitiveness for U.S. companies? Ditto.

While Mr. Rogers gets a point or two for actually doing some Congress-type work while he's in Washington (as opposed to enforcing the party line and hosting GOP fundraisers), it would be great if he accomplished something that would help the state of Michigan.

Just Plain Wrong

As regular readers may have guessed, I disagree with Mike Rogers on a wide variety of issues. Many of these are differences of opinion on things like government transparency, civil rights, fiscal responsibility and science-based public policy.

In today's Press & Argus, though, I read a letter to the editor that transcended politics. After losing her mother to pancreatic cancer, the writer went to D.C. as a volunteer for the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. She met with Mr. Rogers (and his health legislative assistant) to urge his support for H.R. 745, the Pancreatic Cancer Research and Education Act.

This should have been a no-brainer for Mr. Rogers, who not only loves the emotional connection of a good story but has also been active in specific health care issues. Alas, it seems as though Mr. Rogers wasn't paying attention:

After many follow up e-mails and phone calls, Congressman Rogers has not yet co-sponsored the bill, and I thought his constituents might be interested in some of the legislation he has felt compelled to co-sponsor, as listed on his Web site:

H.R. 970: Expressing support for designation of June 30 as National Corvette Day.

H.R. 142: Expressing the sense of the Congress that there should be established a National Pet Week.

H.R. 225: Congratulating Tony Dungy, a native of Jackson, for leading the Indianapolis Colts to victory in Super Bowl XLI.

H.R. 1059: Congratulating the Adrian College Bulldogs men's hockey team for winning the Midwest Collegiate Hockey Association regular-season title and postseason tournament and for having the best five-year win-loss record in Division III.

HR 325: Commending the Michigan State University Spartans men's hockey team for their victory in the 2007 NCAA championships.

H.R. 745 was introduced by RogersPal Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and has 139 co-sponsors -- both Democrats and Republicans (including fellow GOP Michiganders Candice Miller & Thad McCotter).

Mr. Rogers has worked with Ms. Eshoo on many occasions, including a bill to block a decision by the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) to control coverage of a specific drug used to treat anemia in cancer patients. To clarify, this bill was actually a Congressional Review Act joint resolution, "a rarely used mechanism for overturning executive branch regulations."

Clearly, Mr. Rogers isn't afraid to micromanage. So why no support for H.R. 745?

Is it because Mr. Rogers has avoided pretty much any sort of legislative effort this term? (He has been rather busy with GOP fundraising and party discipline, though.)

Is the bill just some pork-packed government spending spree?

Hardly.

Among other things, H.R. 745 would require the Secretary of HHS to develop an interdisciplinary committee to establish research objectives, provide a strategic research plan, and evaluate NIH research grants. The bill would also require the NIH and CDC to create a communications toolkit for patients and their families. The Congressional Research Service summary has all the specifics.

The writer's pain and sorrow -- too familiar to all of us who have lost relatives and friends to cancer -- is joined by her frustration. She traveled to Washington as a citizen advocate, a volunteer who hopes to help other families fighting this deadly disease. Her "representative" still hasn't co-sponsored the bill, deciding for whatever reason that it wasn't worth the bother... unlike National Pet Week or National Corvette Day.

Now that her letter has made the local paper, though, it will be interesting to see if Mr. Rogers changes his tune.