RFC – What makes these eight congresspeople different?

Of all the resolutions passed by the 109th US Congress, the two single most despicable must be the following ones: HR 6166, or the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which lifted the long-held Habeas Corpus rights from non-residents, and the HR 921 in support of Israel’s war crimes in Lebanon (it included the following language: “recognizes Israel’s longstanding commitment to minimizing civilian loss and welcomes Israel’s continued efforts to prevent civilian casualties“). To my great surprize, the presumably “progressive”, “socialist” and “anti-war” former congressman and now senator of Vermont, Bernie Sanders, supported this resolution. In fact, only eight congressman voted against it. The same eight also voted against the Military Commissions Act. Here are the names of the only representatives who showed the courage to vote against *both* of these resolutions:

Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii
John Conyers, D-Michigan
John Dugell, D-Michigan
Carolyn Kilpartrick, D-Michigan
James McDermott, D-Washington
Ronald Paul, R-Texas (the only Republican of this short list)
Nick Rahall, D-West Virginia
Fortney Stark, D-California

(for details see: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h2006-391and http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h2006-491)

So what makes these eight different? Can anyone tell me more about these people? Why such a large number of representatives from Michigan? What happened to the so-called “liberals” from all the other states?

As far as I am concerned, this goes way beyond the left/right or liberal/conservative divide. Except for these eight, I consider all others as accomplices of war crimes and enemies of democracy. As far as I am concerned, they belong in jail and not in Congress.

With the exception of Ron Paul (which I discovered only recently), I don’t know much about these eight members of Congress. All I know is that they had the courage to refuse to put their names behind the two resolutions which will go down in history as among the most revolting and disgusting ever adopted by the US Congress.