Thieves in the Temple.

uniform pain.

On Thursday, the House plans to vote on H.R. 4167, the "National Uniformity for Food Act," which would require uniform food-labeling regulations in all 50 states.  Sounds nice, doesn't it?  Sounds efficient, doesn't it?  But what if you're a state like California, which since 1986 has required warning labels for products containing chemicals which cause cancer or birth defects?  Or Michigan, which requires warning labels about allergic reactions to sulfites in bulk food?  Or Rhode Island, which wants shellfish that has been frozen to be labeled as such?  And how stringent do you think this federal government will be about, say, genetically-engineered organisms, when they have demonstrated by their actions that they only care about money?

Naturally (so to speak) the big food manufacturers claim that varying state standards are too onerous.  I must have missed the AP report where the cost of label ink shot up so high that it put CEOs in the poorhouse.  Or the one where companies had to hire ten million monks with quill pens just to make ten different labels instead of one.  Labeling standards do not in and of themselves prohibit manufacturers from putting certain things in food; labeling standards announce what's in the food, and then allow consumers to make decisions about what they put in their bodies.  Just so happens that food manufacturers tend not to put things in their food that show up on California's list, but that's their choice.  How is it "onerous" to make big food manufactures ashamed of themselves for shooting up their products with Frankencrap?  Big food manufacturers also know that organic foods are becoming more popular (which is why they also lobbied to gut federal organic labeling standards); no doubt they feel persecuted because of this peculiar desire for a better life on the part of the American populace.  I'm surprised Congress didn't call this the "National Food Fairness Act of 2006."

This bill is, unfortunately, going to pass the House, because it has 225 co-sponsors (where 218 votes is a majority).  It would still be worthwhile to administer a beatdown here, or here.  Might as well let them know we're watching.

UPDATE.  The Union for Concerned Scientists also has an emailing tool against this bill.  Remember, don't use all three; it muddies the data.

why I did not send money to the Democratic National Committee for the four hundredth time.

Because in an otherwise sympathetic letter I received on Friday, Dr. Howard Dean said, "Democrats have to win to lead." And he underlined it.

I'm tired of hearing how Democrats can't do anything unless they have a majority.

Democrats don't have to win to lead.

They have to lead to lead.

PATRIOT Act vote tomorrow.

The Senate votes on the PATRIOT Act tomorrow; tell your Senators to support the Feingold/Leahy/Bingaman amendments and vote against cloture today.  The new "compromise" PATRIOT Act makes few concessions and allows the federal government to go on fishing expeditions without sufficient judicial oversight -- or, indeed, without a sufficient relationship to foreign terrorism.  I don't presume that the four Republicans who voted against cloture last time will do so again, but our Senators still require our counsel.

penny rants for the day of February 26, 2006.

Conventional wisdom on the left holds that John McCain would win the 2008 Presidential election handily if he could get the nomination, but that he'll never get the nomination because he's not right-wing enough.  Well, think again, fellow liberals!  An ABC.com report runs down all the far-right moves McCain has been making lately, including endorsing intelligent design (and probably in science class) and backing a gay marriage ban in Arizona.  And add these items to the list:  supporting Social Security privatization and a la carte cable packaging (I support the latter item as well, but it is a far-right-wing priority), and endorsing the nefarious Ken Blackwell for the Ohio Governor's race when the race still had two other strong competitors.  And McCain is making all these moves almost three years before Election Day, so he'll be, as they say, assimilated by 2008.  And what does this putative maverick really do, anyway?  Does he improve upon or vote against these pork-filled spending bills he rants about?  Does the campaign finance bill that bears his name (and Russ Feingold's) do the job it claims to do?  Did that anti-torture amendment amount to very much after all?  And if McCain picks Chuck Hagel as his running mate, it is doubly to cry -- because it would make Hagel the moderate on the ticket, and it might also mean that Hagel, currently the gold standard of American conservatism, is just as corrupt when it comes his turn to be President.  Empires take a long time to fall, you know -- I wonder how many of Commodus's contemporaries thought the Roman Empire would drag on for another few centuries -- but the fall is still painful, more so for the rest of us than for its leaders.

Did I mention that I hate the fact that a man's going to jail for denying the existence of the Auschwitz gas chambers?  Denying the Holocaust or aspects thereof is dumber than a bag of college Republicans, but as I said when I was talking about Pat Robertson a few weeks ago, a healthy society allows folks to say idiotic things, and then a healthy society shames those folks so that they say those idiotic things less (or, at least, not so much in public).  That so many say so many shameful things these days in America (cf. "O'Reilly, Bill") and yet feel so little shame means we're not a healthy society, but the solution isn't to pass new laws preventing certain kinds of speech; the solution is to get healthy.  American society is unique, at least, in that it has the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits the government from prosecuting free speech.  Most countries don't have that, and this is why Holocaust deniers can be prosecuted elsewhere under charges of "denying the Holocaust" or "spreading false news" or, as has happened at least once in Canada, "terrorism" -- rather than having their opinions laughed at in the public square, which is how it should be.  Of course, having the First Amendment means we also have right-wingers who cry "censorship!" and "oppression!" whenever we stand up to their ridiculous arguments.  But being free doesn't mean you're free from hard work.

At the Los Angeles Zoo, a hog whose life-mate recently died takes up with a bongo antelope.  They groom each other, take walks together, and occasionally cuddle up nose to snout, though there's some talk that the relationship might be a little one-sided on the hog's end.  There's no truth to the rumor, however, that Sam Brownback has proposed legislation to "defend the sanctity of marriage" from future hog-antelope pairings -- or that Rick Santorum has said "it's no surprise" that such a pairing could occur "in such a liberal culture as that of Los Angeles."

UPDATE.  Minor editing done in paragraphs one and two.  I used to be a pretty good editor.  Also, to get the maximum out of the second link in paragraph one, click on the "intelligent design" graphic on the right side of the page and watch John McCain attempt to describe his support for ID.  "Straight talk express" it ain't.

science!

The Ohio Board of Education struck intelligent design from its science standards; now it's time to convince Utah to do the same.  Utah's state legislature votes within the next ten days to require teachers to present "alternatives" to evolution in their life science lesson plans -- and since we haven't evolved a scienfitic paradigm to contest or revise evolution (as, say, quantum mechanics contests and revises Newtonian physics), that means ID, again.  And no, it's not "religious discrimination" to keep nonscience out of science classes, because it isn't the job of a healthy society to dumb down lesson plans to appease Religious Right crybabies.  (Are there any justifications for teaching ID in science classes I've neglected to slam in this blog?)  Here's where you tell the Utah state legislature how you feel.

Mr. Bush said we're "addicted to oil," and Congress is about to prove how tough it is to shed this addiction by pushing for offshore oil drilling again.  How many ways is this a terrible idea?  It increases the risk of oil spills, of releasing mercury into the water, and of destroying coastal wetlands that protect against hurricanes.  Not to mention that it doesn't help our oil addiction -- which we could be helping by investing in alternative energy resources.  Senators Bill Nelson (D) and Mel Martinez (R) of Florida led the fight against this sort of thing in 2005; my bet is that they'll remain fighters.  But if they don't, and if your Representatives need some persuasion, you may be able to get their attention with this handy tool.

Of course, as with verifiable voting, the real action in renewable energy isn't happening at the federal level; it's happening at the state level, and not just with renewable energy standards adopted in Colorado and New Jersey recently.  An Apollo Alliance report describes some more victories at the local level, including a wind power plant in Johnstown, PA, creating a thousand jobs, an energy efficiency standard in Washington state saving taxpayers almost $500 million over 14 years, a Schwarzenegger-backed One Million Solar Roofs initiative in California.  Just so happens that the National Governors Association meeting, where all 50 Governors go to talk shop and stuff, is coming up, so you may want to contact your Governor and make sure they make energy independence, and the boons it offers, a topic of discussion.

the best defense.

The House plans to vote this week on the so-called "Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006," which would cut off humanitarian funding to Palestine in order to retaliate against the Palestinian's election of the Hamas party to the majority in their parliament.  Need I mention that, if we weren't being such bullyboys in the Middle East right now, we wouldn't be in a position where we'd even have to consider such maneuvres?  This is the sort of thing big countries do when they're backed into a corner, and anything you do when you're backed into a corner does not equal "going on the offensive."  Consider also, that cutting off aid doesn't injure the Palestinian government at all -- it injures only the impoverished Palestinians who depend on it.  Sometimes I wonder if that's the idea.  Opposition to this bill will face quite an uphill fight in the House and Senate, but I'm used to that by now, and maybe you are, too.

America Online wants to institute a "pay-to-play" system of emailing, whereby large emailers can pay a fee (or, in MoveOn's words, an "email tax") to bypass AOL's spam filters and get guaranteed and preferential access to AOL users' inboxes.  And if you're a charity, or a small business, or an online advocacy group, you can't pay and you can't play.  This is another way the big telecoms "improve their revenue streams," but it's also another way to say "tiered service."  Some will say that making spammers pay where other folks don't will drive spammers out of the email business, but I'm more inclined to think it'll just drive the poorer spammers out.  My spam filter already keeps all the spammers out, and at the risk of sounding like Ed Anger, my home is my damn castle and I ought to have the ability to keep some folks out if I like.  If you feel like I feel, has MoveOn ever got the petition for you!

After the publication of even more bad photos of detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib, the U.N. recommended that Tha Bush Mobb close Guantanamo Bay and bring the detainees there to a swift and speedy trial or (more likely) release them, and the National Council of Churches' General Secretary, the Rev. Dr. Bob Edgar, sent a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urging compliance with these recommendations.  Dr. Edgar also renewed a request to allow an interfaith delegation to Guantanamo to monitor the physical, mental, and spiritual condition of the detainees.  You may support their call here.  Don't worry that the release of Guantanamo detainees will suddenly infuse the world with terrorists.  Most of them have been there since the beginning; if there were anything to charge them with, Tha Bush Mobb would have done so already.  Guantanamo looks to me like a dry-run for a much larger interment process within the United States.  Think about that, right-wingers, if Hillary Clinton becomes President.

Bush Mobb going fishing.

Regardless of what that whippersnapper T. S. Eliot says, February, not April, is the cruelest month, and this particular February will end with a Senate vote on PATRIOT Act reauthorization.  We shouldn't be reupping this thing at all, in my humble opinion.  But Senators Feingold, Bingaman, and Leahy are attempting to attach amendments that would, all together now, require any PATRIOT Act search to be related to foreign terrorism.  At the very least, we ought to tell our Senators to support these amendments.  If this fails, I presume we push for the SAFE Act, another Russ Feingold Production; the House would have passed the SAFE Act in 2004, but the Republican leadership broke House rules and kept the vote open until they could bully recalcitrant Reps into voting their way, a practice Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney found abominable when the Democrats used to do it in the early '90s.

Common Cause still has a petition demanding that Congress protect your right to equal access to all internet sites.  The New York Times comes down on the side of righteousness in this instance, but the big telecoms are walking Congress's halls as we speak, whining about their "right" to create artificial "tiers" of service that won't improve service or speed but will improve their already too-fat bank accounts.  They want a damn internet Country Club, is what they want.  But the First Amendment doesn't say only the big corporations have the right to petition their Representatives -- it says we all have the right to petition our Representatives.  Right?

Also, you can watch the ACLU's National Town Hall meeting on spying, secrecy, and Presidential power here; special guests include Lawrence Tribe, Marvin Kalb, and John Dean (yes, thatJohn Dean!).

the annotated "atrocity exhibition."

The News Dissector suggests that I've overreacted to the news of a Dubai company taking over operations at Northeastern ports -- mainly, that Dubai Ports World won't be taking over security operations at ports, as I'd thought.

Also, according to the San Jose Mercury-News, Dubai Ports World has links to Bush Mobb big figures.

Shame -- I'd been waiting to use "atrocity exhibition" as a subject header for a while. Though it's not like I haven't had plenty of opportunities with this "government" in control.

atrocity exhibition.

I had been willing to attribute Tha Bush Mobb's actions to mere incompetence and small-mindedness, though that's no excuse. But now that they're selling port security operations to a foreign, state-owned corporation with more tangible ties to al-Qaeda than Iraq had in 2002, I am going on record: Tha Bush Mobb is trying to screw this country up. Their defense is hilarious, as usual: they looked at the transaction, and they didn't see anything wrong with it. Well, if you can't trust Tha Bush Mobb to protect America, who can you trust? You may want to call your Representatives and Senators and ask them to demand that Tha Bush Mobb stop this sale. Thank your Senators/Reps if their names are Coburn, Dodd, Lautenberg, Schumer, Foley, Fossella, or Shays. And note well, New Jersey residents, that Senator Menendez is drafting legislation to prohibit sales of this nature to foreign companies in the future, which sounds fairly common-sensical to me.

A MediaMatters survey of Sunday morning news programs suggests that the mainstream media's bias might be more accurately described as "conservative" than "liberal." I would describe the mainstream media's bias as "corporate," and I maintain that this is a far more insidious bias than a "conservative" bias, or even a "Republican" bias. But at least MediaMatters does better science than, say, Brent Bozell or Cliff Kincaid or Kenneth Tomlinson. If this study's conclusions prompt you to write your local media outlet, MoveOn can assist you in this endeavor.

Weren't you dying to see more of the pile of elephant dung that's Mr. Bush's new budget? I knew you were, and the Union of Concerned Scientists stands ready to oblige, its analysis focusing mainly on renewable energy issues. It's nice to know that, in light of Mr. Bush's recent discovery that we're "addicted to oil," that this budget cuts federal energy efficiency programs by 13 percent and "balances" relatively large (but not large enough) increases in solar power investment with the total elimination of other programs, like hydropower. And, Middle America? You folks that Tha Bush Mobb say they "own"? You'll be interested in the cuts the budget makes for renewable energy funding for small farmers. With any luck, Evan Bayh will be interested, too.

all aboard for funtime!

Consumers Union has launched a campaign to pass tough pharmaceutical disclosure laws at the state level -- not the federal level, of course, because all you get from banging your head against a wall is a headache. You know why this is important: big drug companies manipulate research studies (cf. Merck), spend beaucoup bucks lobbying doctors to prescribe their drugs, and keep mum about their financial dealings with insurance providers, among their other sins. But now we can easily write our state legislators to force big pharma to be open about all of these things, as well as encourage states to negotiate bulk discounts on prescription drugs for working folks. The state of Maine has passed laws regarding bulk discounting and the manipulation of research -- and did I mention that Maine has a clean campaign finance law that works? Why, yes, I believe I did. More than once, in fact. Anyway, click on your home state here to get started.

I wasn't aware the American people had authorized Senator Roberts to cut a deal with Tha Bush Mobb to change the FISA law in order make their warrantless wiretapping program legal. And forget about any more goodwill from this quarter, Senator DeWine, even if you are an authentic fiscal conservative. Republicans in Congress need to defend the Constitution and listen to the will of the people, not cut deals with a rogue Executive branch. The Electronic Freedom Foundation has a find-your-Rep's-phone-number-with-a-quickness tool. In case you were interested, the EFF has also published a summary of their legal case against AT&T for aiding and abetting said wiretapping. It's a sad day when Arlen "that explanation defies logic" Specter is the most courageous of all U.S. Senators. (And, no, the legislative branch can force a court to rule on the constitutionality of Mr. Bush's wiretapping program -- since the folks who are being tapped don't know they're being tapped, they can't bring a complaint to a court. I don't know if they can pick the FISA court to make the ruling, though -- and I say that fully aware that a John Roberts Superme Court will rule the way Mr. Bush wants them to.)

ABC had a "scoop" the day after Valentine's Day -- tapes that supposedly showed that Iraq concealed its WMD program. Not only did these tapes mostly repeat old news, the story neglected to mention that the star of those tapes, Mr. Hussein's son-in-law, also said they destroyed their WMDs in 1991. You'd think a news show would have included that little tidbit, since it has to do with, you know, the reason we went to war. But wait, there's more! A little less than a week earlier, ABC distorted the ordeals of two young girls so they could claim the "sex trafficking" trade was thriving in America. The world is strange and exciting enough without media folks playing with your feelings for ratings and money, don't you think? But wait, there's more -- they still pay John Stossel! All of these are pretty good reasons to write a letter to ABC.

Last but not least: Mr. Bush wants to spend another $65 billion on Iraq. Would it kill him to put his budget requests for his unnecessary, diversionary, and immoral war in the budget he submits to Congress every year? That would be fiscally responsible of him, but then it's not his money he's spending. Administer a spanking here if you oppose said spending request.

many kinds of slime.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita didn't just bring a lot of water to New Orleans -- they brought all the contaminants we've been dumping into the water all these years, and after the waters receded, they left behind a thick layer of sediment on the ground and in folks' homes, a layer up to four inches thick that includes heavy metals, carcinogens, pesticides, and other industrial chemicals.  Mr. Bush reminds us that we are a can-do nation, yet his EPA seems to lack the will to clean up the toxic sludge that covers New Orleans.  Perhaps you are thinking of lending some steel to their will.

Senator Obama has introduced S. 2239, which would set up a system of independent oversight on Congressional ethics, which several states (including, as of last week, Tennessee) already have.  Currently the House has an Ethics committee made up of five Democrats and five Republicans, and we see how well that's worked.  S. 2239 would be one of those all-too-rare examples of "Democrats going on the offensive," and though I would "go on the offensive" for much bigger game, like publicly-funded elections, I'll support this initiative, and perhaps you will, too, by emailing your Senator.

Remember when Chuck D. used to preach against payola?  (For that matter, remember when Public Enemy's "Can't Truss It" became a certified gold single without making U.S. Top 40 because no radio station would play it?)  Well, it's a lot worse now that the 1996 Telecommunications Act made it laughably easy for megacorporations to buy up radio stations -- now there are fewer people for the record companies to pay off, and several big names, like Clear Channel, Viacom, and Cumulus, are under investigation by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.  Payola actually violates FCC rules, but oddly enough, the FCC isn't enforcing them.  You may want to assist them in remembering where their true loyalties lie in this matter -- that is, with the citizenry to whom the airwaves belong, not the corporations who need license to use them.  You might also encourage your Senator to co-sponsor a Russ Feingold Production, S. 2058, the Radio and Concert Disclosure and Competition Act.  That's right, "competition" -- and unlike when right-wingers put the word "fairness" in their bills, Feingold is right, because leveling the playing field is the best way to promote competition.

victory in Ohio!

The Ohio Board of Education votes 11-4 to bar "intelligent design" from its school classrooms.  According to the Campaign to Defend the Constitution, the Board received some 30,000 emails protesting the inclusion of ID in science curriculums.  Ohio Citizens for Science also worked with Americans United for the Separation of Church and State to reverse the standard.

Maybe I'm an idiot for not having faith in Ohioans.  We still have to hear from the Religious Right in Ohio, though -- that would be those people who complain they just want "a voice in the public square," when what they mean is that they want the only voice in the public square.

lights out!

MoveOn is organizing vigils for February 22 to protest Mr. Bush's NSA wiretapping program. Anti-war vigils tend to be fairly well-attended, but holding a vigil against this particular instance of law-breaking seems a little counterintuitive, even when I apprehend the phrase "witness to lawbreaking" (the word "vigil" has its root in the Latin word vigilia, meaning "watchfulness"). But I'd be happy to report that it works. Also, the ACLU presents a petition "demanding the truth" from Tha Bush Mobb, which might be a little difficult given that Tha Bush Mobb seems intent on pretending they don't understand what all the fuss is about -- Mr. Gonzales is only the latest to wonder what all the fuss is about "wiretapping." It's not the wiretapping, stupid -- it's the wiretapping without judicial warrants. Liberals wouldn't be so angry if right-wingers would listen. The ACLU will also follow up on Monday, February 20 with a "town hall meeting" conducted from their website starting at 11 am EST/8 am PST.

Meanwhile, a group called Voices for Creative Nonviolence has, on this very morning at 8 am CST, begun a thirty-day "fast" from electricity at their Chicago homes, called "Lights Out Chicago," in an attempt to shed light on Tha Bush Mobb's failure to reconstruct the electrical infrastructure in Iraq. All that money we're throwing at Halliburton and the folks in Iraq still don't have a power grid that's as reliable as it was before the invasion? How does Tha Bush Mobb sleep at night? Lights Out Chicago participants will also maintain twice-daily vigils during the work week at the Federal Plaza in Chicago (at Dearborn and Adams), then a once-daily vigil on weekends at Water Tower Park (at Michigan and Pearson). I predict this will be quite inspiring. Bet the "liberal media" doesn't cover it, though.

in which the italics police finally come for "thieves in the temple."

Both the New York Times and Senator Russ Feingold report that the "compromise" struck between the White House and the Republican Senators who backed the December PATRIOT Act filibuster is more like a capitulation. In sum, the compromise still doesn't seem to recognize what all children recognize, that the onus is on the government to prove that their investigations have to do with foreign terrorism. That means your Senators and Representatives are due a phone call, whether Ann Coulter thinks they're "traitors" or not. You may reach the Capitol switchboard at 202.224.3121 or 1.800.426.8073.

this summer I hear the drummin'.

The Ohio Board of Education votes this Tuesday on stripping language from the state's science standards that would allow the teaching of intelligent design in science class, and what a hell of a Valentine's Day gift to the rest of America that would be. Ohio's standard, if adopted, would be similar to the one Kansas adopted. If you have considerably more faith in Ohio's government than I do, you might want to contact Ohio's Board of Education and tell them how you feel.

Perhaps not coincidentally, today is Charles Darwin's 197th birthday. Darwin seemed to find the almost pathological misinterpretation of his work amusing: "I have received in a Manchester newspaper rather a good squib, showing that I have proved 'might is right,' and therefore that Napoleon is right, and every cheating tradesman is also right," he once wrote to a friend. I wonder how amused he would be to find that today he is the sworn enemy of those who misread his observations of the reproductive habits of pigeons to mean "survival of the fittest," a phrase he did not coin and never used. It may well be that, in time, a new scientific paradigm replaces evolution, a paradigm that explains the data better. But "intelligent design" ain't it -- everything seems "too complex to be understood" at some point or other. Would we permit ID's adherents to make health policy? "This disease resists treatment; therefore it must be the product of a higher consciousness; therefore your child must die." Yeah, that sure would win hearts and minds.

how do the fools survive?

The media still can't think straight about Mr. Bush's NSA wiretapping initiative. The lying right-wing punditry want us to believe that "judicial oversight" doesn't exist, but the mainstream media is little better. An NBC poll has 51% of Americans supporting (with 46% opposing) "using wiretaps to listen to telephone calls between suspected terrorists in other countries and American citizens in the United States without getting a court order to do so" -- yet that same poll also has only 42% supporting "conduct(ing) wiretaps of American citizens who are suspected of having ties to terrorists without a court order," with 53% against. What's the difference? For one, the first formulation puts "terrorists" first and the second formulation puts "American citizens" first. For another, and this will come as a tremendous surprise to you, NBC consistently didn't report the second figure, the one that wasn't as favorable to Mr. Bush. In any case, the data hardly supports the mainstream media contention that Americans "don't care" about the wiretaps or think the wiretaps are OK "as long as we get the terrorists." The FAIR link above has contact information for certain NBC news figures if you think they care what you think. Perhaps they will care, if we can make the Holy Righteous Hammer of a la carte cable packaging come down on them.

Google stood up to the Justice Department's ham-handedness, but not to the Chinese government's more virulent citizen oppression, and now the Electronic Freedom Foundation urges you not to use Google Desktop software. Apparently, using the software's "search across computers" feature requires you to store all your documents (word processing, email, spreadsheet) on their servers. Putting all your personal computer stuff on a computer that's out there on the internet is a bad idea, you know -- makes you vulnerable to hackers and spooks and other unsavories. Google might also decide to scan your files in order to put a big bullseye on you for net advertisers, and there may also be issues if you try to get what you have stored on Google computers published later -- publishers may not want your Google desktop-stored writings, because then they'll be "published" already. The privacy issues are more important, of course.

Pennsylvania residents, take note: State Senator Vincent Fumo has introduced SB 101, which would go a long way toward eliminating predatory payday lending in Pennsylvania. Currently Pennsylvania law limits interest rates for short-term loans to 28%, but payday loans still run as high as 900% because they partner with out-of-state banks; Fumo's bill would eliminate that loophole. Payday loans do little other than trap their borrowers in a cycle of ever-rising debt, and I know from experience (as do most American households!) that debt just attracts more debt. Help your fellow-man out by supporting Fumo's bill here -- and get cracking, because the payday loan folks have money and they ain't sitting on their hands.

one person, one vote.

You know the bad news, right?  Mr. Bush's new budget is an even bigger mound of dung than the last one -- slashes another $39 billion in Medicare over five years, leaves out Katrina reconstruction funds just as previous budgets left out Afghanistan war  funds, makes permanent those tax cuts for the rich which even a deaf, dumb and blind infant could see are not pumping life into the economy, and includes a big Social Security privatization plan.  And as you recall, thanks to those short-sighted 1993 Democrats, budget resolutions can't be filibustered.  But we can shame our Representatives into rejecting Mr. Bush's click-your-heels-together budgeting, starting with MoveOn's letter-to-the-editor tool and continuing with incessant phone calls to our Representatives and Senators.

It would not be at all crass to tell your Congressfolk that they'll lose your vote (and that of many others) if they inexplicably stand with Mr. Bush on his hateful budget priorities.  Senators Snowe and Voinovich, who have been holding up Bush budgets for years (though for different reasons), are just as peeved with this one as they were with the others, and Senator Specter adds his voice to the protest this year, though that won't mean anything if the vote is close.

Hey, speaking of Katrina, Governor Blanco is having a hard time making up her mind whether displaced New Orleans residents who haven't been able to return should vote in Louisiana elections via satellite (as many Iraqis living in the United States were able to do during the recent Iraqi elections).  I have no idea why Governor Blanco is waffling here -- doesn't she know she's at least as unpopular as Mayor Nagin and Mr. Bush?  You may want to encourage her to do the right thing.  I have some doubts as to the security of satellite voting, frankly, but better that than nothing.  This time.

in which we invoke the wit and wisdom of former Denver Broncos head coach John Ralston.

I am experiencing illness and fatigue with Tha Bush Mobb's continued spinning of Mr. Bush's wiretapping effort -- Senator Roberts is only the latest Republican shill to act like we oppose wiretapping when we actually oppose wiretapping without judicial oversight. We insist upon judicial oversight because it helps us restrain the President from becoming a dictator. I put that in italics to help anyone else out there with a selective listening disability. Don't make me resort to bold or shouty-caps.

In that spirit:

Republican Rep. Heather Wilson of New Mexico, not previously known for her independence from Tha Bush Mobb, has called for a full Congressional investigation into the wiretapping imbroglio. I know as well as you do that Rep. Wilson's district is rather blue (it includes Albuquerque), and that she squeaked by in the 2004 election, and that she knows this particular stand could be what gets her to squeak by again in 2006, but I don't care. When you do the right thing, you do the right thing, and I praise you for it. Besides, it's entirely possible that she's issued this call after getting pressure from her constituents, and where some testosterone-addled folks would call that "caving to pressure," I call it "doing her job." Sign on to her call, if you so choose.

However, the People's Email Network has declared that Monday's Judiciary hearing, at which Mr. Gonzales stonewalled, was a sham (Senator Specter could have put him under oath, but didn't), and I guess they just don't trust Congress to get to the bottom of it. So, if you like, you may join their call for an independent special prosecutor. Meanwhile, the ACLU also has a letter-writing tool calling for further Congressional investigations and a special prosecutor. Finally, MoveOn has called for both a Congressional investigation and a special prosecutor, plus protection for whistleblowers (i.e., the folks who talked to the New York Times. They apparently presented a petition to Congress calling for these three things yesterday, but said petition is still available for your signature, if that be your will.

find one hundred ways.

Mr. Bush said we were a nation "addicted to oil" in his State of the Union speech the other night -- which, if you'll forgive the esoteric baseball reference, would be a little like Bud Selig saying we're addicted to the home run. And if past events are any indicator, etc., Mr. Bush will propose a lot of initiatives with fancy names like the Clean Power Initiative and the Energy Independence Initiative which will consist entirely of corporate welfare for big oil "so they can develop independent power" -- or gild the plumbing in their mansions, since demanding accountability from large corporations for the free money you give them is of course big government and must be avoided. At any rate, the League of Conservation Voters has an email tool you can use to advocate 10 ways to really reduce our dependence on foreign oil. These include a federal renewable energy standard as 22 states have done, raising fuel economy standards and eliminating the SUV loophole (they qualify as "light trucks" in federal regulations and thus can meet lower requirements), invest in development (not research) of renewable energy sources, and (lest we forget) increase investment in public transportation.

Mr. Bush also espouses the expansion of nuclear power -- and, oddly enough, many sane and intelligent people also espouse the expansion of nuclear power. But Mr. Bush may run one in on us by pushing "nuclear reprocessing" through under the rubric of "developing nuclear energy," and they're not the same thing. "Nuclear reprocessing" describes the process of separating weapons-usable plutonium from spent nuclear fuel generated by U.S. power reactors -- and wouldn't that be an inviting target for terrorists? Even this Congress won't touch Bush Mobb dreams like "bunker buster" nukes, but they may still need some prodding from you, citizen.

Tom Tomorrow explains it all to you, again.

What I was saying yesterday? Tom Tomorrow says it better in six frames.

it is acceptable, even encouraged, to boo the House of Representatives when they enter the room.

The House votes on the nefarious budget reconciliation bill today; if recent Republican votes are any indication, our Congressfolk will be voting and voting and voting until the Republicans get the result they want.  The last budget reconciliation bill passed by two votes (essentially, Mark Kennedy's; if he'd voted the other way, the vote would have been tied and the bill wouldn't have passed).  Rep. Rob Simmons (R-CT), one of the good fellows who talked Mr. Bush out of suspending the "prevailing wage" provision of the Davis-Bacon Act last fall, has already declared that he'll vote against the bill.  Capitol switchboard is 1.800.426.8073.

Step two of our righteous onslaught against "tiered" internet service comes courtesy of Consumers Union:  they now have a page where you may contact your Congressfolk directly to demand that the internet remain unfettered by "tiers" of service.  We talked about this the other day -- about being able to access any web page you like, and big corporations and their Congressional lackeys wanting to take that away from you, by making websites pay more to be part of higher-speed services, which means indy websites like this one and many others you like will be banished to low-speed bands.

Mr. Bush keeps telling us that his NSA wiretapping complies with the law and complies with the Constitution, but he never defends these assertions, and it can't be because "it would let the terrorists know what we're doing," because, as I've said before, I imagine that terrorists already think they're being watched at every moment.  At least nine Republican Senators (or "traitors," in Ann Coulter parlance) have expressed serious misgivings about the program.  Perhaps you can influence your Senators to join them, if they haven't already.