Thieves in the Temple.

"no way am I making the same mistake Bill Paxon made in 1994!"

To my shame, I've held my nose and supported the Democrat -- I walked around nearby swing counties for John Kerry on Election Day just like a lot of other people -- but I try to scrap bad plans as soon as I see they don't work.  Not so with U.S. Rep. Rahm Emmanuel, who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and therefore decides which candidates will benefit from Democratic Party largesse.  A few websites, including Counterpunch and Ecrasez L'infame!, have been closely following the Illinois 6th District race.  In 2004, actual progressive Christine Cegelis, who still calls for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, won a surprising 44% of the vote against 15-term incumbent Henry Hyde.  An impressive showing given the circumstances, but apparently Emmanuel doesn't want to take any chances -- this time around, with Hyde retiring, Emmanuel favors Iraq War veteran Tammy Duckworth over Cegelis, though Duckworth isn't from the 6th District, is another bet-hedger on Iraq though the war robbed her of both legs, and says she cares about progressive issues without supporting any progressive solutions in particular.

Don't believe me?  Then check out the DCCC "Races to Watch" website, where you can see which Democrats plan to run against Republican incumbents.  Click on the state of Illinois, and check out the 6th District list.  Click on Cegelis's name, and you'll get pointed to her website without any further notation; click on Duckworth's, and you'll get a two-paragraph biography in addition to being pointed to her website.  It doesn't take a professional semiotician to figure out who they want you to vote for.  (The other two listed candidates for the 6th District, Peter O'Malley and Lind Scott, get the Cegelis treatment.)  Likewise with John Pavich, the lone challenger to incumbent Jerry Weller in the 11th District; Emmanuel has favored the former CIA operative with a one paragraph biography.  Though Pavich supports alternative energy research (though not development, I notice, and we are, frankly, more in the "development" stage with solar and wind at this point), most of his other positions are the sort of economic band-aids we've come to expect from Democrats.

Then check out District 15, currently held by Tim Johnson (no, the other one!), and click on a challenger named David Gill.  Gill doesn't get the Cegelis treatment from the DCCC website, but his candidacy still only merits a short note:  "Dr. David M. Gill is challenging GOP incumbent Timothy Johnson."  After looking at Dr. Gill's website, I think I know why:  he supports universal single-payer health care (which is far more popular than Democrats seem to think), wants to fight terror cells and not nation-states, supports the Employee Free Choice Act, and wants to withdraw from NAFTA.  Likewise District 18, where Steve Waterworth also gets one sentence of support as the lone challenger to Rep. Ray LaHood.  Waterworth, a 24-year vet of the Air Force, calls the Middle East situation a "quagmire," supports Universal Health Care, opposes faith-based initiatives, and suggests that the real solution to the abortion question is to "work harder to take the glory out of sex."  Hallelujah!  It's true that Waterworth also ran in 2004 and picked up only 30% of the vote.  But that hardly means that 70% of the 18th District loves Ray LaHood.  A lot of voters, there as anywhere else, stay home on Election Day, and could it be that they stay home because the Democratic Party is too scared to stand for what people want?

All in all, the DCCC website is a wonderful tool for figuring out whom to support in the 2006 House races:  if the DCCC pushes a candidate, then you want to support someone else.

errata.

The student-visited-by-FBI-agents story I posted about here weeks ago turns out to be a bona fide hoax, as the student in question made the whole story up.  I'm an idiot for passing it along, obviously, but I'd be remiss if I didn't spend a few moments bashing the kid who started the whole mess.  I don't care what hole in his heart prompted him to do what he did, because I don't grade on extenuating circumstances when the security of my country is involved.  And the security of my country is involved -- now, when the FBI really does something wrong, and when some whistleblower points to a real abuse of power, no one will believe it.  Seriously, I feel like this kid just urinated all over the American flag.  I don't care that he's sorry or that he cried afterward.  In a healthy culture, etc., this kid wouldn't be able to get a job and he'd have to live on government cheese.  But if he's capable of fabricating a drama about something as serious as this, and if he can get a few obviously noodle-headed professors to feel sorry for him, then he's probably going to keep finding enablers to help him out of future trouble.

The UPI reports new details on the matter of Mr. Bush's ambivalent relationship with the FISA court, which also require a correction on my part:  FISA courts have outright rejected "at least six" requests for warrants just in 2003 and 2004 after having never rejected one before (versus the figure of four I gave here two days ago, which figure I'd seen in at least two articles and which figure I'd thought represented the total number of rejections over FISA's existence), and FISA has "modified" 179 of Tha Bush Mobb's 5,645 requests for surveillance, after modifying only 2 of 13,102 before Bush.  Some right-wingers are no doubt ready to tell us that FISA has only modified a little over 3 percent of Mr. Bush's requests, so this isn't a big deal.  These same folks probably won't give you the pesky "2 of 13,102" figure, and they won't add that Mr. Bush obviously thought the 3 percent was a big deal, because he stopped getting warrants.  And, needless to say, these same right-wingers would be telling us that any government misstep in getting a warrant would be criminal if the President's name happened to be Clinton.

(Hat tip to Media Dissector for both items.)

the dreaded return of the "Thieves in the Temple" A/V club!

Looking to punch up those not-so-impressive Christmas retail figures and support independent merchants and expose the One True Aim of Tha Bush Mobb?  Then go buy a board game called "Wreck the Nation," created by two California women, one a Democrat, one a Republican, both Bush-haters.  Dave Lindorff writes about "Wreck the Nation" for Counterpunch.  The title, as you might expect, is self-explanatory:  you compete with other players in a race to destroy the country with tax cuts for the rich, interminable wars financed on credit, defense contractor boondoggles, and other sundry forms of corruption.  And until December 31, the game's creators offer a special three-for-two deal (for a little under $60, before shipping), so you can keep one at home and give two of them away as gifts.  Christmas may be over, but everyone you know still has a birthday.  So, if I may paraphrase a famous philosopher, go buy a couple "Wreck the Nation" games and help out the economy.

penny rants for the day of December 27, 2005: special NSA wiretapping edition!

Don't listen to Tha Bush Mobb or the hired hacks of TV Pravda, I mean Fox News, if you really want to understand security:  listen to Bruce Schneier.  Schneier's essay about Mr. Bush's authorization of warrantless NSA wiretapping not only dissects John Yoo's specious arguments in favor thereof, but includes a variation of the line I've been using here for weeks.  To wit:  "Unchecked presidential power has nothing to do with how much you either love or hate George W. Bush.  You have to imagine this power in the hands of the person you most don't want to see as president, whether it be Dick Cheney or Hillary Rodham Clinton, Michael Moore or Ann Coulter."  I don't expect to convert the rageaholics who are Mr. Bush's true constituency, but maybe Bruce Schneier can.

Our local Knight-Ridder outfit reports that Mr. Bush is not the first President to test the limits of wartime executive powers.  Er, no one said he was.  But please do not be the right-wing jerk who says, "see?  What Mr. Bush does ain't so bad!  Other Presidents have done it, and we've survived!"  First of all, we've survived other Presidents' abuses because we've been willing to stand up and fight them, not because Newton's Fourth Law dictates that in America everything always turns out for the best.  Second, disagreement with Mr. Bush in no way implies agreement with President Lincoln or President Truman or President Wilson or President Adams (or, for that matter, President Clinton, who was, shall we say, far from immune from imagining that the office of the President had more powers than the Constitution says it does).  In the interest of full disclosure, however, I am compelled to reveal that I did, in fact, fail to protest President Lincoln's suspension of habeus corpus at the time of the event.  It was an abject act of cowardice, my not being alive at the time, and I apologize for it.

Over the weekend, the Associated Press reported Colin Powell's thoughts on eavesdropping with a misleading headline:  "Powell Supports Government Eavesdropping."  The headline is misleading partly because Powell ultimately comes down on the side of those who think Mr. Bush did the wrong thing (though he won't say Mr. Bush broke the law, and shame on him for not saying so), but it's misleading, also, because it suggests that if you oppose Mr. Bush's abuse of power, you must also oppose government eavesdropping.  How many times must I tell these pimps!  That isn't the point liberals have been making.  The point liberals have been making is this:  Mr. Bush has authorized wiretapping without warrants.  We make the President get warrants from a judge because, consistent with the desires of the founders, we don't want the President to have too much power, specifically the power to investigate anyone he pleases for petty reasons (cf. "Nixon, Richard").  Moreover, Mr. Bush could have obtained a warrant after-the-fact from the FISA court within 72 hours of conducting surveillance, and the FISA Court has denied four warrants in three-plus decades.  If Mr. Bush couldn't be bothered to request warrants after-the-fact from a court that historically rubber-stamps such requests, we might be excused for thinking Mr. Bush cares less about national security and more about putting himself above the law.

Finally, have you been feeling comfortable in the knowledge that Mr. Bush has only been tapping international calls, or calls to/from folks suspected of being al-Qaeda operatives?  Well, you shouldn't be -- at least two individuals have gone on the record to suggest that the NSA more likely listens passively to all the messages it can listen to, rather than specifically targeting individual communications of known agents.  The Heritage Foundation fellow's defense of such data collection made me laugh out loud!  Passive collection of data in the manner described above doesn't violate the 4th Amendment, he says, because a computer is doing it, not a human!  Ha ha ha ha!  Can you believe that?  Doesn't he know that a computer can't do anything without a human operator?  Or is he prepared to defend Tha Bush Mobb at any cost to his reputation?  No matter.  Mr. Bush won't address these suggestions, of course, because, he'll say, then the terrorists will know what we've been doing.  I had not previously thought of terrorists being so complacent that they presume at any moment that they're not being watched or infiltrated.

(The Boston Globe article referenced in paragraph 4 requires registration.  So, supposedly, does the Philadelphia Inquirer article in paragraph 2, though, again, that wasn't an obstacle for me today.)

the findings of the "Thieves in the Temple" tax commission.

Deciphering the early November recommendations of the President's Tax Commission ain't tough:  you will pay more taxes under either of the President's Tax Commission's two offered plans, and the rich will pay less.  The 10% bracket will disappear into the 15% bracket again, and the top bracket, the 33% bracket (it was 39% in 2001) will have yet another three points lopped off, down to 30%.  At the low end of the top bracket, which starts at $200,000 per year, that's a savings of $6,000; you only save $300 a year with the 10% bracket, but, Christ, what an insult.  If Congress pushes either of these plans, then Tha Bush Mobb will have rolled back one of the few progressive achievements of the Clinton Presidency -- the tax hike for the top 1 percent of income earners.  Plus it will sanction the abominable tax cuts that help the rich more anyway:  the dividend tax cut and the capital gains tax cut.  Reagan's 1986 tax cut slashed the top rate from 50% to 26%, but at least (in response to popular outcry) it closed most of the corporate loopholes.  They've all come back over the years.

All in all, this is an unconscionable record of cruelty and arrogance.  It's no good citing the handful of good ideas the Commission had, or wiping our brows because at least they didn't go for a flat tax or a national sales tax.  The Commission has done a horrible job, a job reflecting accurately upon a cruel, immoral and decadent American culture, as well as the lying, smirking "President" who brought the Commission into existence in the first place.  And, needless to say, if you hurt like I do at this moment, you certainly have no business trading your acquiescence to this monstrosity for the continued "security" Tha Bush Mobb offers.  Tha Bush Mobb is like La Cosa Nostra, only without honor, let alone a sense of history.

So, y'all know what I'd do, right?  I'd create a new bracket at the top, maybe representing the top one-fifth of one percent, and I'd tax that at 90%; I'd raise the personal exemption up to the level of the living wage and index that to inflation; I'd slash the lower brackets up to $60,000 to 10%; I'd restore the brackets between $60,000 and $200,000 to their pre-2001 levels; I'd raise the floor of the Alternative Minimum Tax to the level of the top one percent, raise the rate to slightly under the level of that bracket, and I'd index the damn thing to inflation like any child would have known to do and like any child would know to do now; I'd restore the dividend tax, the estate tax, and the capital gains tax to their pre-2001 levels and, here's a neat trick, make them progressive so smaller home-sellers don't get hammered as much as speculators and mansion-sellers.  And don't even get me started on all the sin taxes I'd create -- for example, I'd tax blockbuster Hollywood pictures, because spending all those hundreds of millions on things blowing up makes me think we're going to fall harder than Rome before I die.

I wouldn't even have to ask if all this is "revenue-neutral."  Once you start taxing the rich like you should, you move past "revenue-neutral" and into "funding low-income housing properly."  When President Kennedy cut the top tax bracket in 1961, and thus signaled the government's abandonment of projects like low-income housing, that was the beginning of the end for this country.  Can we turn it around?  We can, if "moral values" really mean anything to anybody.

what's the best Christmas present of all?

Congress is off this week, and therefore can't hurt us.

happy holidays!

Today, I've got a very special email alert. I want you to email Bill O'Reilly and wish him happy holidays. That's all I want you to do. Don't be rude; don't rant against his abject hypocrisy and rank sentimentality. There's no need for all of that on this most joyous of occasions. Just wish the old coot happy holidays, and then walk away from your computer, and spend time with family and friends, knowing that you've done all you can do to spread joy this holiday season.

If enough of us do it, maybe we'll get to see a replay of that scene from Scanners -- you know the one -- on the next Factor.

penny rants for the day of December 22, 2005.

In a recent Los Angeles Times, Max Boot suggests that those who decry the outing of Valerie Plame are now being hypocrites for not decrying the "illegal" leaking of the existence of Mr. Bush's program of spying on domestic calls. To wit: "...the rule of thumb seems to be that although it's treasonous for pro-Bush partisans to spill secrets that might embarrass an administration critic, it's a public service for anti-Bush partisans to spill secrets that might embarrass the administration." To which I respond: what about that statement bears any relationship to reality? The outing of Valerie Plame Wilson protected only the massive collective ego of Tha Bush Mobb, and put the lives of Mrs. Wilson and those who worked with her in danger. The leaking of Mr. Bush's NSA spying authorization, on the other hand, might better be described as an instance of whistleblowing. It's also hard for me to imagine that there are very many "anti-Bush partisans" currently working in the NSA, unless by "anti-Bush partisan" Mr. Boot means "anyone who disagrees with the President about anything at any time, no matter how honestly." And finally, Mr. Boot needs to stop talking to strawmen and talk to some actual liberals: I have never called the outing of Valerie Plame "treasonous," and I have in fact said on at least one occasion that it does not meet the high bar the founders set for treason.

You don't need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows, and apparently neither does Senator Rick Santorum, who, in the wake of John E. Jones III's decision against intelligent design in science classes, now seems troubled by the notion that the Dover School Board pushed religion in its science curriculum. Not that it makes a difference any more than the fact that Mr. Santorum actually compared homosexuality favorably to bestiality in 2003 makes a difference, but I had thought that Mr. Santorum didn't approve of teaching ID in science class anyway -- I'd read an Inquirer editorial from a year or two ago in which he said that. However, I was not aware that, as late as 2002, he thought that ID was "a legitimate scientific theory" that ought to be taught in science class. Does any of this ring a bell? As in "I voted to give the President the authority to act against Saddam Hussein in order to show Hussein we were serious about his disarming, but I was never really in favor of war"? Or "it's not the morality of stem cell research I'm against, it's the financial burden on the state"? Messrs. Kerry and Forrester lost, too. So will death strike in threes in this case? We can only hope!

Merry Christmas, poor people!

The Senate pre-empted another action alert by extending the PATRIOT Act as-is for another six months, though I expect they won't take it up in earnest until the last minute, just like we all did in high school and college.  And Mr. Cheney cut off a grandstanding tour of terror hot spots in order to break a Senate tie on the Senate budget bill that still cuts too many programs for the poor but not for the rich, which ain't any part of any teaching of any Jesus I know.  End of story?  No -- thanks a few changes inserted by Democrats at the last minute, that bill now has to go back to our poor, poor, pitiful House of Representatives, and with any luck the budget reconciliation process will go on until 2027.  This is no time to say "let's cut a deal and go home":  their job is to listen to us and do our will, and if it's too much work for them to stay until they get it right, they ought to find a new line of work.  So keep the pressure up, either by calling your Representative or by signing on to this People's Email Network petition.

Oh, almost forgot:  the insertion of the ANWR drilling amendment to the Defense Appropriations Bill backfired on Alaska Senator Ted Stevens.  Republicans put the ANWR drilling amendment in the Senate budget resolution in the first place because budget resolutions can't be filibustered (thanks to those 57 1993 Democrats for that!), whereas Defense resolutions can, as this one was.  Give a holla to Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington state, who will face a well-funded opponent in 2006 (though she ain't exactly chopped liver herself; she did take out a three-term incumbent in 2000).  The only down side to the postponement of the ANWR drilling project is that Ted Stevens will still be in the Senate, busting out his Incredible Hulk tie for the really important legislative fights.  On many occasions he's said he'd retire if his dream of drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve became a reality.

UPDATE. I don't know how I managed to put the apostrophe after the "t" in "won't" in paragraph one, but that's now fixed.

"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."

Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank has introduced H.R. 4291, the Protection Against Executive Compensation Abuse Act, which would require corporations to increase their disclosure of executive pay and perks.  This is how they do it in Great Britain, folks, and their executives aren't nearly as fat as ours.  H.R. 4291 would also expand shareholders' role in approving executive compensation plans, "golden parachutes," and severance packages.  H.R. 4291 doesn't have the piercing point of Martin Sabo's bill that would limit executive compensation to 25 times what a corporation's lowest-paid worker makes, but it does address one of the main problems with CEO compensation -- that corporate boards, themselves packed with current and retired CEOs, have too much say over CEO compensation.  The bill is (all together now) stuck in committee, but you can help get it unstuck by calling your Congressperson, and calling those members of the House Committee on Financial Services to which it's been banished, using the "find Congressional Committee members" tool above.  They've gone home for the holidays, lucky them, but they might have to come back depending on developments in the Senate -- and, you know, they're going to have to come back eventually anyway.  (If it helps your phone-shyness, the House Committee on Financial Services includes several Republicans who do good work, like Iowa's James Leach, Ohio's Steven La Tourette, and Delaware's Michael Castle; you could target those.)

Given that some 900,000 children suffer from child abuse and/or neglect every year, the good folks at Care2 want you to call upon the U.S. Surgeon General to prepare a comprehensive report on child abuse and neglect in the United States.  The Surgeon General's office can be a pretty powerful platform -- witness those ubiquitous labels on cigarettes, which date from the Nixon Administration, or C. Everett Koop's support of condoms in preventing sexually-transmitted diseases in the late 1980s, or the Surgeon General's report on underage smoking in 1990.  Besides, since it's about the kids, it's something Bill O'Reilly and I can both get behind.  Just kidding; I don't really expect Bill to get behind anything that he can't sensationalize in his own uniquely ugly and sentimental manner, or, indeed, anything that some right-winger didn't suggest to him.

Want to buy gas, but don't want to support oil companies who donate to the Party of Evil?  You could buy gas at Hess, which donates mainly to the Party of Lesser Evil, or you could buy gas from Citgo, the Venezuelan-state-owned gas station which has, unlike other big oil companies, sold heating oil at discounted rates to poorer communities in Massachusetts and the Bronx.  Here's a tool that'll help you find the Citgo station nearest to you.  But be warned:  all that money you spend at Citgo won't go to the Middle East, but to Hugo Chavez's regime in Venezuela.  I'm generally sanguine about Chavez myself, but Tha Bush Mobb would love to declare him a terrorist state and they'd love to punish you for supporting it.  No, really punish you, as in put you in jail for giving "aid and comfort" and such.  Be sure to refer your captors to "Thieves in the Temple" if it'll get you out of trouble.  Tha Bush Mobb can only kill me once, and they'll probably botch it like they botch everything else.

penny rants for the day of December 21, 2005.

Sometimes "Thieves in the Temple" prints the most paranoid things!  But I print the most paranoid things because I think this government is capable of acting out the most paranoid things, and printing them here flushes them out into the light.  I know I only have five readers a day, but I also know I'm not the only one doing what I'm doing, so those of us who echoed the rumor that a military drill was about to go live back in mid-August in order to give Mr. Bush the pretext for starting war with Iran might have helped stop it.  Or maybe Tha Bush Mobb were doing psyops on folks like me, but if they were, it obviously failed; my two hundred-odd screeds against their policies since then have, hopefully, proven that.  So, then, in that spirit:  30 patients in a Baltimore hospital get a live bird flu virus in order to test a bird flu vaccine.  Scroll about a third of the way down, for reports dated December 18 (skip that one about all those explosives "disappearing" in New Mexico, if you dare), and note that the link takes you to a Washington Post article, which of course reports the event in a more benign manner.  Could this be the thing-that-gets-out-of-control that gives Mr. Bush the pretext to declare martial law and just make himself damn king already?  I'd love to be wrong about that, but Mr. Bush is not really having a very good month, you know.

The Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells of our great land must be awfully jealous of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, because he says what they wish they could get away with saying.  But though, like Mr. Bush, Mr. Ahmedinejad purged his government of everyone who could govern, it's not all salad days for the small-minded:  two days ago he banned Western music from Iranian radio stations and stores, and how did the Iranian public react the next day?  By selling Western music and blaring it from their automobiles.  Didn't these people get the memo?  They're supposed to be shaking in their boots so Mr. Bush can better justify his October 2006 invasion,  But here they are, openly mocking Mr. Ahmedinejad, blaring "Hotel California" out of their open car windows, suggesting he's "living in the stone age!"  You go, citizens of Iran!  I just wish you could all hear the real jewels of American popular music, folks like Todd Snider and Lucinda Williams and Prince Paul.

In a peripherally related note, Judge John E. Jones III of Pennsylvania's Middle District rules that Dover, PA schools could not teach Intelligent Design as an alternative to evolution in science classes, thus slowing the American slide into theocratic tyranny a mite.  Any fool knows that the only "debate" concering evolution in a science class is between evolution and the paradigm that explains the data better than evolution does, but no doubt our religious bigots are readying their charges of "religious discrimination."  Perhaps Mr. Robertson will demand a "revolution" like he did after Lawrence v. Texas.  And what flag-burning, gay-humping, baby-killing, welfare-taking liberal President appointed this John E. Jones III to the Middle District court of Pennsylvania?  I'll give you one guess.  Hint:  he's been a judge in the Middle District since 2002.

I'd been content to believe that even a two-minute list of "skirmishes" in the "war on Christmas" were isolated incidents -- or, as Neal Gabler put it the other day, "three incidents of chicken pox does not constitute an epidemic."  But it's even worse than that:  most of the most often-repeated "skirmishes" are just plain made-up.  I never had the stomach to fact-check John Gibson's book, It was the Jews!  It was the Jews!  And the Liberals!  And the Jews!  How the Title of My Book Alleging a "War on Christmas" is Even Longer than You Thought, so I applaud anyone who does.

the endangered government act of 2005.

Rep. Pombo's attempt to sell off public lands to mining concerns for a pittance was one steaming pile of corporate welfare that didn't make it to the House/Senate budget reconciliation process, but he's done enough damage. This week the Senate is about to take up his attempt to eviscerate the Endangered Species Act, which the House narrowly passed a while back. This bill, since I'm too lazy to link to my other alerts about it, would exempt pesticide decisions from ESA compliance, replace the mandatory critical habitat system with an optional one, and use taxpayer money to pay developers to comply with the law. The latter item is especially offensive -- it's sort of like paying burglars not to break into houses. I believe the Senate is looking for some guidance from you, citizen, whether they think so or not.

As I mentioned yesterday, the House snuck ANWR drilling into the Defense Appropriations bill, and Senator Stevens of Alaska has done the same to the Senate version. Senator Cantwell of Washington (up for re-election in 2006) has vowed to filibuster the Defense Appropriations bill until the provision is removed, and the Senate does have a full plate and is anxious to go home for the holidays, poor fools, so perhaps they can be persuaded to strip the provision from the Defense bill. (Perhaps they can also be persuaded at this address.) And when I say "perhaps they can be persuaded" I mean "they damn well better." Around 30 of them are up for re-election, and even Craig Thomas of Wyoming might have to face someone who's actually won a race before, so I say let's help them keep that in mind.

someone get a big "S" for Chuck Hagel's chest!

The Senate has a full plate, and they're trying to get home for Christmas, about which I couldn't care less -- they could get home on time if they'd do a better job. A big topic, of course, is the PATRIOT Act conference report, which 41 Democrats, one independent, and four heroic Republicans filibustered on Friday. I've got two tools to tell your Senator what to do, so pick one: use this ACLU tool to call your Senator and thank/spank him/her; use this Electronic Freedom Foundation tool to send a letter thanking your Senator. Senators are like anyone else; they like to know they're doing a good job.

The People's Email Network -- which has a petition calling for the investigation of NSA wiretapping and a petition demanding the rejection of Judge Alito for the Supreme Court, if you haven't signed that one already -- reminded me of a few things today: that the government apparently prefers spying on Quakers to finding al-Qaeda terrorists just as it prefers picking a fight with Iraq to ferreting out actual al-Qaeda cells, and that Samuel Alito "could not recall" being a member of a group that opposed co-education and integration of the Princeton student body (just as John Roberts couldn't recall being on the Federalist Society's friggin' steering committee). As I've said before, no Republican should ever be allowed to say any variation of "I can't recall" ever again, and I certainly never ever want to hear any non-con saying "well, do you remember every single solitary club you've ever joined?" Well, yes, I do, because I've never joined a club that I've regretted joining or would have made anyone ashamed of me.

And, uh, yeah, yeah, yeah -- I thought of all the Congressfolk I'd like to keep around just as easily as you did after I posted for their collective defeat in 2006. Sherwood Boehlart, Cynthia McKinney, John Conyers, Ron Paul, Tammy Baldwin, Dennis Kucinich, Steven La Tourette, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But I'm not going to apologize for being angry unless I'm just plain wrong about what I'm angry about. They all should hurt like the American people hurt right now. It'd be a growth experience for them.

penny rants for the day of December 19, 2005.

We ought to get a flash mob together to assemble outside the Capitol Building and boo Congress, because they sure are finishing up with a bang.  The House attached ANWR drilling to the Defense Appropriations bill so no one would vote against it, cut social spending one percent across the board (which will, among other things, throw 35,000 kids off Head Start), cut $13 billion from college loan programs, and gave liability protection to vaccine manufacturers that they surely don't need.  Admittedly, they also put through a sizable amount of hurricane relief (which Tha Bush Mobb will allow to flow into the coffers of their crony corporations just like they're doing in Iraq) and added $2 billion in relief for heating costs for the poor, but let's not do jumping jacks when they do what they're supposed to do.  This Congress is a stick in the eye of the American people, and I assure you Tha Bush Mobb are laughing at us about it.  Here's a quickie candidate endorsement for 2006:  whoever your Representative is, vote against them.  I am so tired of seeing the back of their hand.

Hot on the heels of Mr. Bush's defiant-yet-defensive admission that he committed yet another impeachable offense, here comes a report alleging that the Department of Homeland Security investigated a U. Mass-Dartmouth student for borrowing a book by Mao Zedong so he could write a paper on totalitarianism.  Apparently The Little Red Book, a collection of quotations and speech excerpts from Mr. Great Leap Forward, is on the Department's watch list.  Now you could imagine a situation where a student might want to learn why totalitarianism is bad, and try to understand totalitarianism from a totalitarian's point of view, couldn't you?  You know, so he can maybe learn how totalitarianism works and maybe fight totalitarianism wherever he might see it?  Then again, maybe that's Tha Bush Mobb's real reason for snooping around in your library.  I think this would be a good thing to call your Congressperson about.  You don't have to mention that I just advocated his/her defeat if you don't want to.

But I'm not all about bad news, I'm really not.  Remember a few months ago when I celebrated falling profits in the movie industry?  Now I'm ready to break open the champagne for disappointing holiday retail sales as well.  Just as America is finally getting sick of motion pictures and televised entertainment filled with ridiculous explosions and preposterous "characters," America is also finally starting to get sick of spending all its money on material goods, and it makes me damn proud of my country, it really does.  Just buy a few gifts and donate most of your Christmas budget to charity, that's what I say.  Or, if you're artsy-craftsy (I wish I was!), you can make gifts for people.  Or you can shop online at a place like realgoods.com and get environmentally progressive gifts for your loved ones.  These would all be good ways to put the Christ back in Christmas.

(Hat tip to the Media Dissector blog for the item described in the second paragraph.)

victories, or not.

Y'all know that line from Pulp Fiction, the one that Harvey Keitel says to Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta after they've cleaned all the dead brains out of their car? The one that begins with "let's not go..."? Pretend I've just repeated it in the context of all the "victories" we've supposedly won in the last two days. Particularly Mr. Bush's "reversal" on the McCain/Warner anti-torture amendment.

The "liberal media" widely reported Mr. Bush as having caved to House and Senate pressure over the McCain/Warner amendment to the Defense Appropriations Bill, but, as I suggest here, the "liberal media" have it wrong. As we know, the McCain/Warner amendment didn't specifically outlaw torture; rather, but required that the Army's own anti-torture standard in its interrogation field manual become federal law. So if the Army updates said field manual with ten classified pages that, in the words of one Pentagon officer, teach interrogators how to walk "right up to the edge," then we've got problems. And, dig this, this is apparently the first update to the Army's field manual for interrogation in thirteen years. What timing! Like I said: no benefit of the doubt for Tha Bush Mobb.

Meanwhile, right-wing spinmeisters will no doubt be pillorying the New York Times for breaking its NSA-spying story on Friday, after cravenly sitting on it for "a year" "to do additional research" and even then withholding "some information the Administration has argued could be useful to terrorists." Perhaps the breaking story gave 41 Democrats, 4 Republicans, and Jim Jeffords the steel they needed to block a cloture vote on the PATRIOT Act conference report that day. But right-wing spinmeisters ought to learn to join the debate, instead of shouting everyone else down. They can't whine about how the terrorists now know something they didn't know before, as if America is so weak that it can't withstand self-scrutiny. They can't harp on how one of the Times's authors has a book out coming soon, as if that fact automatically negates any of their charges. They can't merely parrot Mr. Bush's line that he followed the law and the Constitution, as if Moses handed this information down from Mount Sinai. They need to deal with specific charges contained in the New York Times article that the NSA taps violated the NSA charter, federal eavesdropping law, and even the PATRIOT Act. They also need to deal with charges the Times omitted, which Dan Eggen's Washington Post article from the same day runs down. And, yes, they also need to consider what could happen to them under a President Hillary Clinton, with the powers that Mr. Bush would be giving her.

(As always, registration required for New York Times and Washington Post articles. Cockburn and St. Clair review some of Eggen's reporting in this article, which earns them a hat tip.)

there's a better world a-comin'.

Ralph Nader pens a tribute to the recently deceased former Wisconsin Senator, William Proxmire. (Note: Counterpunch has the wrong title up. The article's actual title is "The Senator Without Guile.")

Yes, it has also occurred to me that a Senator Proxmire (or hundred) could just as easily win repeated landslides today without raising the millions of dollars these fools raise these days.

if my hands are tied/must I not wonder within/who tied them and why/and where must I have been.

This week, the Senate considers the "Small Business Health Fairness Act," passed by the House in July, and if the House passed it you know it's not a "fairness" "act" nor does it really help small businesses, unless by "small" you mean "big." The SBHFA (it doesn't always make a cute acronym, does it?) exempts health insurers from "onerous" state regulations which require them to cover certain medical expenses. Look at this list: pre-natal and maternity services, cancer screenings, well-child care, direct access to Ob/Gyns, and mammograms. Quelle surprise -- the law is pretty sexist as well as garden-variety cruel. Shame the Senate into compliance with the popular will here.

I'd say we should have known better than to use a Clear Channel billboard in Arkansas to display the slogan "Wal-Mart: Killing Local Businesses One Main Street at a Time," but, as you may know, Clear Channel owns damn near every billboard in the country. Clear Channel's Fort Smith, AR division president Bob Sadler has decided, after selling the space, not to run the ad, and utterly failed to cite objective standards in deciding not to run content: "'I know it when I see it'" is apparently his philosophy in screening out undesirable content, which as you may recall was Justice Potter Stewart's standard for determining whether a text is pornographic. Look at the slogan again and tell what exactly is so undesirable about its content, aside from the fact that it attacks a corporate Bush Mobb supporter. I'm not going to call Mr. Sadler's act "censorship" per se, but I'll be happy to call it "cowardice," since the willingness to look like a dumb partisan shill is surely not a species of courage. Write Bob Sadler and tell him what you think of his decision, if you think he cares.

Add Concerned Women for America spokesman Robert Knight to the list of far right-wingers who desperately need a spanking. Knight essentially compares folks who say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas" to Nazis. He's way ahead of the curve, you know -- if the anecdotal evidence offered thus far by extreme rightists is correct, and if the number of such incidents is in fact rising, then Nazis like myself who say "happy holidays" should successfully remove all mentions of Christmas from all American institutions by the year 1,210,947 A.D.. And what a clever way for Mr. Knight and his organization to disguise their abject intolerance of Jews -- by saying it's the liberals who are more like Nazis, and not the people who want to force everyone to say "Merry Christmas" to Jews! You can write the CWFA if you like, or you can write CNN if you like and tell them to stop being the enablers of far-right idiots in need of a diaper change.

Personally, I'm quite pleased that I don't pay for CNN. Just as I don't want one cent of my hard-earned money going toward the active prevaricators at Fox News, I don't one cent of my hard-earned money going toward a news organization that's too timid to stand up to right-wing crybabies.

penny rants for the day of December 15, 2005.

I cannot believe my eyes! Did former Enron CEO Kenneth Lay really call upon "former Enron employees" to "help him present the truth about Enron," in response to a "wave of terror" from his prosecutors? The Magic 8-Ball says yes: former Enron CEO Kenneth Lay really called upon "former Enron employees" to "help him present the truth about Enron," in response to a "wave of terror" from his prosecutors. Left unreported is which "former Enron employees," exactly, Mr. Lay expects to help him out. The former Enron employees whose lives were ruined when their 401(k)s were suddenly worthless? Or the former Enron employees he laid off immediately after the scandal broke? Seriously, if I were a believer in the death penalty, this man would get the chair before any of Mr. Bush's hundred-odd murderers from Texas. They wouldn't even have to pay me to pull the switch.

Memo to liberals: Joe Liebermann is not going to be the new Defense Secretary. I repeat: Joe Liebermann is not going to be the new Defense Secretary. It doesn't matter what you've heard or whom you've heard it from. Mr. Bush will make Joe Liebermann the new Defense Secretary at approximately the same time monkeys fly out of my butt. Don Rumsfeld is not stepping down. Don Rumsfeld thinks he's doing a great job, thank you, and doesn't need to step down. And if he did step down, via some water-into-wine-calibre miracle, Mr. Bush would not select a Democrat -- not even a Democrat whose initial Senate campaign received the endorsement of William F. Buckley, Jr. -- to replace him. Remember the other day when I said that Mr. Bush often does psyops on the left? This is another one of those times. Don't believe the hype. You'll be a much happier liberal. I know I am.

victory over torture! or not.

Eric Schmitt filed two reports for the New York Times this week in re the McCain/Warner torture amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill, which Mr. Bush has threatened to veto if said amendment is included.  In the most recent report, dated 12.15, the House voted overwhelmingly on Rep. Murtha's resolution to instruct the Defense Appropriations Bill conferees to accept the Senate's anti-torture provisions.  But the earlier report, dated 12.14, states that the Army has revised its field manual to, well, be a little more specific about what interrogators can do and what they can't do.  The article claims that the list of proscribed and allowed techniques is 10 pages long.  It looks an awful lot like a way of undercutting the McCain/Warner amendment, which, as you may remember, does not specifically outlaw torture, but calls for standard Army interrogation techniques (which presumably do, or rather did, outlaw torture) to become federal law, which the President would then be bound to enforce.

Now, having read the latter article, you may well be saying (as the New York Times probably wants you to say), "well, according to the article, the Army has a long and specific list of interrogation techniques, so it likely does prohibit torture, given all the controversy there's been over it lately."  I sure do hope that's the case, but there are at least four additional factors to consider.  One, Tha Bush Mobb, being made up of "big thinkers" and "reality creators," doesn't care about "controversy."  Two, the list is classified, so we don't know that it prohibits torture for sure.  Three, because the list is classified, we also don't know that there are in fact 9 pages of allowed techniques and one page of prohibited techniques.  Four, the timing is, as it always is with Tha Bush Mobb, awfully suspicious.  And Tha Bush Mobb doesn't deserve any benefit of the doubt.  I can't help but feel that this isn't just "a stick in McCain's eye," but a stick in ours as well -- you already know Tha Bush Mobb wants to investigate you, and you already know they'd prefer not to fuss over distinctions like "citizen" and "non-citizen."  So, yeah, I'm rubbing my own eye at this moment.

I don't think it would be too much to ask -- and when I say "I don't think it would be too much to ask" what I mean of course is "I demand" -- that our elected representatives look at this "classified" document and report back to their constituents about it, and not accept the whining excuse that "then our enemies will know what we're up to," as if foreign terrorists ever decide to just cancel their little outings based on what precise interrogation techniques the United States uses to ferret out their comrades.  "Electrodes to the scrotum?  Well, now I feel a little squeamish about bombing this club" is not a statement I suspect I will ever hear a terrorist utter.

(Registration required for both of the above articles.)

late-comer to my inbox.

MoveOn sponsors a petition whereby you may express your opposition to the PATRIOT Act conference report.

Hopefully the Feingold/Sununu/et al filibuster will spur media outlets to do more inquisitive analysis like this MSNBC report, in which the Department of Defense apparently still can't link any peace protestors to foreign terrorists.  But I'm not going to hold my breath.

penny rants for the day of December 14, 2005.

The House/Senate budget reconciliation might not get done until next year, which is terrific, and 12 Senators now oppose the PATRIOT Act conference report, which is also terrific no matter how much fearmongering we get from the White House.  Admirably, John Sununu the younger of New Hampshire has stayed on the case (though James Sensenbrenner in the House hasn't -- he's really squandering the good will he's built up with me).  It's really not too much to ask that the government proves their investigations are related to foreign terrorism.  But Tha Bush Mobb wants to investigate and detain us without fear of reprisal or reversal; otherwise they wouldn't balk at this reasonable notion.  I've said it before and I'll say it again:  ye who support Tha Bush Mobb in their wish to have the leeway to investigate ordinary citizens had better think about what could happen to you if the more ruthless and clever Hillary Clinton were to become President.

Sometimes I think the new President of Iran is really a CIA agent (which, I'm told, is the opinion a few Iraqis also hold of Saddam Hussein).  Talk about how Western imperialism has hurt your country and continues to hurt your country, fine.  Talk about how the U.S. government has designs on turning your country into another welfare teat for Bush's crony corporations, fine.  Pursue a "peaceful nuclear program" in a country that's already polluted as hell and would be much better off pursuing solar power, not fine, but few other governments are more enlightened in re renewable energy.  But say Israel should be "wiped off the map"?  Call the Holocaust "a myth"?  Why not just say "I dare you to invade me"?  Thanks, Mahmoud -- I was so looking forward to the Republicans taking a few more seats in Congress after Tha Bush Mobb starts beating the war drum in, just to pick a date at random, October of 2006.

Here's a shock:  black folks in America are more likely to live in polluted areas than white folks.  Maybe you're about to tell me black folks living in cities versus rural areas (or suburban areas) has a lot to do with that, but "black folks must live in cities" is not Newton's Fourth Law and redlining is not "a myth" any more than corporations deliberately moving into poorer areas is "a myth."  And I notice that blacks living in non-urban areas seem to face the same problems.

UPDATE.  I've made minor changes to the above, particularly to the second paragraph, where (in the original version) I obviously lost my train of thought toward the end.  I apologize for the crummy mood which produced the crummy prose in the first place.  Please make a note of it. 

this is how we do.

Movie critic Neal Gabler annihilates the "war on Christmas" argument advanced by Fox News Watch hack Eric Burns, who is clearly not prepared for argument with sentient life. Burns walks into the ambush with "if I can just give three examples right now in different parts of the country" and Gabler whacks him over the head with "three incidents of chicken pox doesn't make an epidemic." Shame you almost couldn't hear it over Burns "hanging back," by which he must mean "shouting."

But now I'm going to bring some more thunder.

If you're really that threatened by someone saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas," or whatever else, I got three words for you, and I'll say them slow:

Suck.

It.

In.

You live in a country with other people in it. You live in a country with people who think and worship differently than you do. Even your personal Lord and Savior, George W. Bush, agrees with me that this is a good thing. You do remember from history class that many of the folks who settled in America were running from religious persecution elsewhere? Actual religious persecution, the kind that got you imprisoned or maimed or killed, and not the "persecution" where you don't hear only the things you want to hear all the time?

The beauty of America is that so many disparate people have come here to dream, and have stayed to forge bonds across differences. If that's too tough for your obviously slender belief in God, then move to some dictatorship which would lend steel to your soul. America is not your damn enabler.

are we in trouble? check if it's a day ending in "y."

Ever see signs on your windshield telling you that Election Day is Wednesday, or that you can't go to the voting booth if you have any outstanding traffic tickets, or that you can't vote if you're a member of the NAACP? I shudder to think that doing such a thing makes someone happy, but Senator Barack Obama has introduced a bill that would also make that someone a criminal. S. 1975, the Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act of 2005, would mandate penalties of up to $100,000, one year imprisonment, or both for any acts like those I've listed above, and would also mandate the attorney general and the federal Election Assistance Commission to provide accurate election information when allegations of deceptive practices are confirmed. Some possible opponents will argue that it's up to the states to patrol elections. This would be yet another example of philosophical rigidity interfering with one's sense of justice, a sin I find difficult to abide these days. Ask your Senator to be a co-sponsor by clicking here or by using my toolbox in the upper left-hand corner.

If you're in the mood to give some overpaid, overfed oil executive the jollies, you can write Exxon/Mobil and ask it to decline its share of over $10 billion in corporate welfare handed out by recent Congressional bills. Seriously, they ought to be ashamed of themselves, hauling in almost $10 billion in quarterly profits. They went before the Senate not too long ago and claimed that the volatility of the markets forced them to gorge themselves with money. I guess you never can predict the demand for something that powers almost every automobile on the planet and figures in the manufacture of most household items. The Senate was so impressed that they tacked on an oil company tax hike to their tax cut bill (and Mr. Bush, can you believe it, said he'd veto it). Oil companies may one day rank with religious righters as the least-persecuted folks with persecution complexes in America. Next we'll hear some oil CEO tell us that his mother can't even tell her friends her son's an oil CEO.

This is also the week to tell your Senators to vote against cloture and join the filibuster against the PATRIOT Act conference report, in which infinitesmal changes would be made to the PATRIOT Act. Six Senators intend to vote against cloture, and that is 34 short, but n.b.: three of them are Republicans (Larry Craig of Idaho, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and John Sununu the younger of New Hampshire). Send a note via The People's Email Network or call using either the aforementioned toolbox in the upper left corner or this handy ACLU link. Presumably if this filibuster doesn't work, we'll get back behind the SAFE Act, which Senator Feingold re-introduced some time ago.

both ends burning.

New Jersey residents, take note: the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) seeks public comments on a proposed expansion of the state's Renewable Electricity Standard, or RPS. The expanded standard would require that 20 percent of the state's electricity come from new renewable energy sources by the year 2020. It's similar to the renewable standard which passed in Colorado last year (which the power companies there fought tooth and nail, of course, with lies and distortions). Personally I don't see the hold-up in reaching 100 percent much sooner than that, but voicing your support for the expanded standard does not preclude you from supporting a more expanded standard later on. Use UCS's handy action page, and remember that the BPU will only be taking comments for another week.

I have so been waiting to use an obscure Roxy Music title in a subject header! Now I can die happy!

deep thoughts.

As if I didn't need more reminding that it was a whole lot easier for the populace to influence Congress before the holiday shopping season, the House passed their nefarious dividend and capital gains tax cut extensions yesterday. Now their tax cut bill differs markedly from the Senate's, meaning we could have a hairy reconciliation process. I mean, we can only hope! The more the House and Senate argue, the less damage they can do to the rest of us. But between that House tax cut bill and those cruel budget cuts and that PATRIOT Act reauthorization (not all Mr. Bush was hoping for, but enough to keep Senator Feingold angry), 2005 ain't finishing up well. Of course it could have been a lot worse -- after 1l.2.04 I thought we were going to have estate tax repeal and a flat-rate income tax and Social Security privatization by now -- but the disproportionate presence of far right-wingers in Congress is insufferable.

And here's how Tha Bush Mobb wants that to get worse: as gay marriage was the wedge issue in 2004 ("wedge" as in "the slice of the pie that gives us more than half the pie," as well as its more common meaning), illegal immigration may be the wedge issue in 2006. Remember, people who get uptight about illegal aliens don't automatically vote Republican, but now they might. Mr. Bush himself has been a waffler on immigration issues -- I'll admit that his statement about Americans not having to choose between safety and openness, though it propped up bad economic policy, was quite impressive -- but "showing independence" from Mr. Bush's waffling might be an asset to would-be far-right-wingers in 2006. More on this later.

In any case: remember those Republican campaign slogans? Start repeating them to your friends. I think I'm going to make bumper stickers.

obliviously on they sail.

The House GOP leadership pushes ahead with its plan to extend tax cuts on dividends and capital gains. These tax cuts benefit the well-off, not the working poor and middle-class, and the rich don't need any more tax breaks, and income is income is income whether you call it "salary" or "bonus" or "dividend" or "capital gains," so of course I oppose the Republican cuts. This would be a very good time to call your Representative. The salient bill is H.R. 4297.

But the Democrats, I'm pleased to report, advocate a plan that would cut the alternative minimum on the middle class further, and would make up for the revenue shortfall (which the Republican plan doesn't do at all) by raising taxes on those making more than $500,000 ($1 million for married couples). We could tweak the married couples figure, I suppose (if you're two people, you really don't have twice the bills), but this approach is -- how would a conservative put it? -- fiscally responsible. It, too, merits a phone call to your Congressperson, particularly if said Congressperson is a Republican.

torture incorporated!

When I hear Condi Rice mutter these half-assurances that the United States doesn't torture its prisoners, I can't help but think that if Ms. Rice uttered such tripe while working for a Democratic administration, putative "conservatives" all over America would attack her for sounding like a trial lawyer. Meanwhile, the House considers whether to keep the McCain/Warner anti-torture amendment in the Defense Appropriations package, and Rep. Murtha has introduced a motion to "instruct the conferees" (that is, the House conferees in the House/Senate conference committee) as to how to vote on the McCain/Warner amendment, which hopefully will be "in favor of it." I'd advise following up with a phone call to your Representative after you use the link. (You can also send a blanket letter to your Congressfolk using this ACLU tool.)

I've been arguing pragmatically against torture (i.e., I've been arguing that torture generates bad intelligence), versus arguing morally, mainly because it's not what you'd expect from a liberal, but now I think I've been remiss about discussing the moral implications of torturing prisoners. I'll be brief: if you don't trust your freedoms enough to act your best self to your enemies, then you don't deserve your freedoms. Being your best self is not being weak; being a violent rageaholic and acting against your beliefs because "we're at war" is being weak. Need I add that if Mr. Bush had paid more attention to intelligence concerning Mr. bin Laden's plans, he might be more able to be his best self now?

time is running out fast.

The New Jersey Senate goes home tomorrow, so that gives you about one and one-half working days to call Governor Codey at 609.292.6000 and ask him to post S. 1987, which would prevent New Jersey's state pay-to-play ethics reform bill from pre-empting stronger ethics bills passed by individual towns and counties. You can view the text of S. 1987 here. If you happen to know your district number, you can get contact information for your state Senators here.

If you hail from Camden or Monmouth counties, I think this would be a good time to tell your state Senator (if indeed this is a belief you hold) that requirements for "clean elections" programs in these counties are too stringent when compared with successful clean elections programs in Maine and Arizona. Maine and Arizona allow candidates to meet lower thresholds with smaller donations. And if that means too many third-party candidates get on the ballot, tough toodles. I doubt that "tough toodles" is itself a very persuasive phrase to New Jersey's state Senators, but you understand the sentiment.

take it to the House.

The House is back in action this week, so it's time to blanket your Representative's office with phone calls asking him or her to bring the troops home from Iraq. You can use the tools in the above left corner or call the Capitol switchboard at 888.818.6641 or 888.355.3588. Also, you can read John Murtha's resolution here.

The nefarious House budget bill includes a provision from Richard Pombo (who also sponsored the House bill aiming to gut the Endangered Species Act, of course) -- which would sell off vast swaths of public lands at deep discounts so that mining companies can develop it. You would think that the government would want to make money off a deal, but not in Bizarro World America -- the quicker they fill the coffers of their corporate paymasters, the quicker they can fill their own coffers with campaign contributions, or, in the case of Duke Cunningham, huge mansions. Of course, this is our land they're selling, so, really, they're taking food out of our mouths, aren't they? While you're at it, remember to keep the pressure on the House to keep that ANWR drilling provision out of whatever budget monstrosity emerges from the House/Senate conference.

I also have a petition whereby you may call for the release of four members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams, who were kidnapped in Iraq by a group calling themselves the Swords of Righteousness Brigade toward the end of November. I sincerely hope none of you non-cons are out there saying, "well, that serves the anti-war bastards right." That would not be terribly Christian of you.

don't tell, don't tell.

Information must be free, but Tha Bush Mobb sees information as a threat, and no wonder:  though all three branches are under Republican control, you still know that Bush's tax cuts go to the rich, that electronic voting machines are easy to hack into, and the Iraq war ain't going so well.  So Tha Bush Mobb suppresses information wherever it can (did you find tax bracket information in your last 1040 booklet?  Neither did I!), and so it goes with the Environmental Protection Agency's new plan to significantly limit information companies must provide about their release of toxic chemicals (i.e, mercury, lead, and dioxin) into local communities.  Luckily the Union of Concerned Scientists provides a tool so that you may leave a comment with the EPA about their nefarious plans.

beyond the headline.

The IRS investigates a Los Angeles-area Episcopalian church for potentially "endorsing" Senator Kerry last October, and one of our "local" papers overstates the case for unity between the religious left and the religious right against said IRS investigation. I say "overstates" because the article gives only one instance of a right-wing group (the National Association of Evangelicals) criticizing the IRS investigation. I really desire peace between left-wing and right-wing evangelicals, I really do. But I'm not going to let my wishes dictate reality.

A considerably larger chunk of the article discusses a bill which would permit tax-exempt churches to endorse candidates (which, as you may or may not remember, I'm against). A flack at the American Center for Law and Justice explains his support for said bill by claiming that "(i)t's difficult to distinguish between issues and something that is understood as an endorsement."

"Difficult to distinguish" between "issues" and "endorsements"? A real conservative would never stand for such whining. If you say "vote for X" or "vote against X," that's an endorsement; if you say "this war is wrong for the following seventeen reasons" or "call your Senator and tell them you don't want them to vote for that bigoted Marriage 'Protection' Amendment," that's an issue. And they say liberals are noodle-headed?

In any case, the IRS says it's merely following up on the complaints it receives. That statement alone provides the solution -- citizens could file complaints against right-wing churches (including the televised ministries) and see what the IRS does. You could try to contact the IRS directly, via the address given on this page, but I suspect you might be better off working with an organization monitoring abuses by tax-exempt organizations. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Campaign to Defend the Constitution encourages you to report back to them if you've noticed "overtly political sermons, fliers, or events sponsored by or emanating from a local church" or are "collecting information on the political actions of a national religious right organization or megachurch." Let's hope DefCon can separate the "issues" from the "endorsements."

describing another dispatch from outside the reality-based community.

Former Bob Dole press secretary Douglas McKinnon should know better than to slam the media for demoralizing the troops.  Actually, I think he does know better, for he can't seem to decide whether the villain is "liberals" or "Democrats" or members of "the media" or some combination of the three, and he can't even pin down whether "many" in the media or "some" in the media are responsible.  But this only compounds his sin.  And saying that these ethereal villains "gleefully" demoralize American soldiers compounds it further.  Being both a liberal and, I guess, a medium for information to get from one place to another, I would challenge anyone who reads this blog to find the "glee" in it.  The word "glee," according to my Random House Unabridged, comes from an Old Norse word meaning "glow," and means "open delight or pleasure; exultant joy; exultation."  It should be obvious to any reasonable person that, no matter how witty I try to be at any given moment, the current state of the world leads me not to "exultation" but to misery.

And Mr. McKinnon's analysis is also mercifully free from the bonds of verifiable evidence.  How many "negative" stories from the war front does he prove false?  How many "negative" stories does he prove are poorly-contextualized by the media, even?  How many unreported or underreported boons coming out of the Iraq war does he cite?  How many journalists or Senators or other liberals has he caught in a state of rapturous "glee" about the demoralization of American troops?  How many examples does he provide of the "ingrained contempt" for the military supposedly shared by "many liberals" in the "Democratic Party" and/or "the media"?  And how many soldiers serving in Iraq does he quote expressing their demoralization because of what this ever-shifting nexus of "liberals" and "Democrats" and "the media" has allegedly done?  If you answered "not a damn one" to each of the above questions, you win the right to consider yourself a reasonable human being.

The right wing's whining about "hurting the troops by opposing the war" is beyond insulting.  The Republicans control the Presidency.  The Republicans control the Senate.  The Republicans control the House.  The Republicans answer to their corporate paymasters, who control the media.  And the Democrats also currently reside outside the reality-based community; how else to explain why it took their leadership two weeks to support John Murtha's call for withdrawal?  Very soon there'll be no one left for the Republicans to blame but us -- the uppity citizenry, with the temerity to question Our Great Leader and His Golden Gut.

Charlie Schultz was right, and he wouldn't be laughing about it now.

I've been somewhat remiss in my self-appointed duty as exposer of "conservative" hypocrisy lately, and I'm sure those of you who read other liberal blogs have already seen it, but here it is anyway: despite the howling of some religious bigots, the Presidential holiday card doesn't mention Christmas even one time! This hypocrisy is not Mr. Bush's -- the erstwhile President has repeatedly said that anyone in America should be free to worship the god of their choice, or worship no god at all, if that's their will -- but that of religious bigots who have said nothing about it. Obviously they feel safer going after underpaid shop clerks.

It gets better: despite the ranting of certain Fox News personalities (sic) about the "war on Christmas," the Fox News Channel's store advertised, no, not "Christmas" ornaments but "holiday" ornaments. There was even an O'Reilly Factor "holiday" ornament. But Fox News listens to its critics! Follow the link to the Fox News store now, and you'll see "Christmas" ornaments. I was bracing for Fox News to explain that the O'Reilly/Gibson rantings are only their own opinions, and that the Fox News store reflects a commitment to diversity that's necessary if one is to succeed in the marketplace. But apparently they're not even putting that much effort into being Pravda TV anymore. See the original "holiday" balls here.

the Republic strikes baq.

That spin you heard, that Mr. Bush was about to start bringing troops home? Pretty funny gag, huh? Right up there with the appointment of Edith Brown Clement to the Supreme Court, the replacement of Dick Cheney with Tom Ridge in 2001, and the appointment of either Ridge or Dan Coats as Defense Secretary in 2000 -- all rumors that turned out to be so much psyops on the American left. And I guess we're all supposed to be impressed that Mr. Bush's plan for success in Iraq runs an astounding thirty-five pages -- just like his Agenda for America website which, despite its size and breadth, you or I could slash apart off the top of our head. But all that's yesterday already, and in the meantime MoveOn has another petition to call on Congress to insist on a 2006 exit strategy, the "Homeward Bound" resolution now has 62 co-sponsors, John Murtha's resolution is still on the table, Jim McGovern still wants to cut off Iraq war funding, and the fabulous Barbara Lee has sponsored a resolution forbidding the construction of permanent military bases in Iraq. The MoveOn link takes you right to a petition, and the "Homeward Bound" link takes you to a write-your-Rep tool courtesy of TrueMajority; you can call your Rep about the others.

there's an hour of sunshine for every million years of rain.

David Swanson, author and Washington director of ImpeachPAC (what do you suppose they're about?), describes Tony Trupiano, a possible Democratic candidate for Congress in Michigan's 11th District who has pledged to pursue impeachment charges against Mr. Bush if he's elected.  If, like me, you wouldn't mind voting for Democrats if they'd actually be Democrats, but are sick of being held hostage by fear of Republicans, then fellows like Tony Trupiano might be for you.

I worry, of course, that the DNC won't stand for such foolishness and will actively destroy candidacies like Mr. Trupiano's because they "can't win."  Whereas the Republicans' propensity for Killing Their Own is a relatively recent development, Democrats are masters at that particular black art.  Happily, recent history suggests that the Democrats might not have a choice in the matter:  recall how little the Republican establishment wanted to do with the Gingrichoids that ran in 1994 and wound up winning both Houses.  Republicans were in the same boat in both Houses in 1994 as the Democrats are now.

thank God for Tom Tomorrow!

I wrote about that awful Cliff Kincaid article yesterday, and even after five angry paragraphs I didn't get it all. But Tom Tomorrow did get it all, in just four unusually spare panels.

That's why he's the artist. He has a good blog, too, with many good guest writers.