Thieves in the Temple.

freedom overspill.

As you may have noticed, I try to post alerts on the weekdays and rants on the weekends, but a lot went on this week, both in Congress and in my mild-mannered citizen life, so the alerts have spilled over into the weekend.  At least none of the following requires a phone call.

Senator Russ Feingold introduced an amendment to the emergency supplemental appropriations bill which funds the war; his amendment will only permit the release of emergency funding if Mr. Bush redeploys U.S. forces out of Iraq by December 31, 2006.  It seemed so far off when Senator Feingold first proposed "the end of 2006" as a withdrawal date, didn't it?  But now it's almost here.  The amendment would allow the maintenance of a "minimal force sufficient for engaging directly in targeted counter-terrorism activities, training Iraqi security forces, and protecting U.S. infrastructure and personnel," which I suppose Mr. Bush could interpret all kinds of ways.  Still, it's movement, and it'll help end this $439 billion-and-counting boondoggle of a war.  So push it along.

The incorrigible Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has introduced the "Platform Equality and Remedies for Rights Holders in Music Act."  That title maimed a lot of English just to spell out "PERFORM," so you know the bill's gotta be nasty.  The bill would limit future satellite and digital radio receivers to what the bill calls "reasonable recording," and when Ms. Feinstein went to define "reasonable recording," she obviously only talked to the RIAA -- who doesn't think that playing back selections based on song title, artist, or genre is "reasonable" or playing a recording in two different rooms of a house is "reasonable."  There's more, of course, but I'm already convinced I ought to send a hello to my Senators.

The Senate plans to take up the stem cell debate within the next few months -- you know, after they get done taking up the flag-burning amendment and the gay-marriage-hating amendment and the ending of the Estate Tax, since coddling emotional cripples and corporate greedheads is far more important to Bill Frist than saving lives through medical research.  In the meantime, the Campaign to Defend the Constitution would like you to send your stories, if you have them, of how stem cell treatment could impact your life or the lives of those you love.  You can do so at this space.

Speaking of Bill Frist's Bizarro legislative priorities, another email-writing tool with which to oppose the Federal Marriage Amendment, or the "Protecting Marriage from Those People Act" or whatever.  Americans United for the Separation of Church and State will be sponsoring a National Youth/Student Lobby Day in Washington, D.C. on May 23; if you can go, register here.  And, if you're a member of the clergy or a religious leader, Faith for Fairness has a separate page, just for you.

Also, if y'all get a chance, please check out the last two days (for those of you tuning in late, that's April 28 and 29) of Taegan Goddard's Political Wire.  I told you there was a lot going on.  I could generate an entire post of gloatspill just on the April 28 entries, but I'll spare you.

UPDATE.  The EFF action page in paragraph 3 isn't loading on my computer either.  More updates as they arrive.

prediction? pain.

Today sees the introduction of H.R. 4975, the Republican leadership's lobbying and ethics bill, and USA Today called it a "snow job," which, in light of recent events, might become a fairly common epithet in the near future.  H.R. 4975 bans travel paid for by private groups, but only until just after Election Day 2006, and though it bans lobbyists from flying on corporate jets with Congressfolk, it doesn't ban corporate executives from flying on corporate jets with Congressfolk, so it doesn't even begin to solve the problem (why not ban Congressfolk from flying on corporate jets with executives, for Christ's sake?).  And there's no independent, non-partisan oversight board, no disclosure requirements from lobbyists, and few changes in gift-giving rules.  Reps. Shays (R-CT) and Meehan (D-MA) have offered an amendment that would create a non-partisan oversight board, you can support that amendment, and other suggested amendments, here.

A while back, we wrote Mr. Bush asking him to make the IRS abandon its plan to allow tax preparers to sell your confidential tax return information to other companies, and though he seems to think it's not his job, at least Senator Obama thinks it's his:  he's introduced S. 2484, which would prohibit what I've described above.  Contact info for your Senator, as always, can be found here.  For more background, read PennPIRG's testimony before the IRS, on behalf of other state PIRGs, the Consumer Federation of America and the National Consumer Law Center.  As I've suggested before, the only reason not to keep this information private is that someone, somewhere, sees money to be made without having to do any real work.  This economy may be a shell game economy, where "financial services" people look down on people who make stuff people need, but that doesn't mean we have to put up with it.

If you've missed other action alerts on Congress's attempt to turn the internet more completely over to corporate control, FAIR runs down the issues once again, and they do a better job than I've done.  In addition to tipping the playing field in favor of the big telecoms, FAIR notes that the COPE Act (do you suppose "COPE" is a command to the citizenry?) would also severely hamper public access channels in their efforts to negotiate fairly with cable/satellite providers.  FAIR helpfully points you to two more action pages, one here and one here.

the body, twitching on the table.

In the first sign of life Tha Bush Mobb has shown in some time, they've hired Fox News pundit Tony Snow as their new Scott McClellan.  The "liberal media" seems preoccupied with the fact that Snow levelled harsh criticisms at Mr. Bush in the past, and not very preoccupied with the fact that Snow levels these criticisms from the right.  (For example, the media seems particularly bent on taking his famous "something of an embarrassment" quotation out of context -- you can find said context here.)  Tony Snow looks like a nice guy from far away, even reads like one.  But he's not an "outsider" and he's not a "media guy."  He's a Fox News guy for many years, which means he's already part of the propaganda arm of Tha Bush Mobb, which means that, unlike the flatly toadyish Ari Fleischer or the flatly frustrated Scott McClellan, he's already had extensive experience putting lipstick on this pig of an agenda.  I fear Mr. Snow will make Mr. Bush look a lot better very shortly.

Then again, there is that agenda.  Mr. Bush addressed rising gas prices yesterday, but his suggestions were far from bold -- we were in the throes of an oil addiction not too long ago, Mr. Bush said, but he will not now call for a sin tax on oil profits or tougher fuel economy standards, because that's big government.  How many times must I tell these pimps!  It's our government.  We have the inalienable right to use government to reign in the most arrogant and powerful members of society when they hurt the rest of us.  I also note that Mr. Bush has told the EPA to ease air-quality regulations as part of his solution.  Never let it be said he's not willing to call for sacrifice, though usually he's calling for sacrifice from the planet Earth.  Already the "liberal media" acts like the MTBE/ethanol conversion is the main reason gas prices have gone up some 25% from what they were six months ago (which was not long after Katrina, you remember).  The right-wing media is also complying -- according to Sean Hannity, high gas prices are the fault of Democrats who've lashed themselves to the environmental movement, and not, for example, the fault of gas-guzzling SUVs like the one he drives.

"we almost ran into a poisonous achtung!"

Congress gone done it -- the House Energy and Commerce commmittee has given big telecoms the green light to let corporations force "tiers of service" and all sorts of other goodies on the internet. Soon your service provider may be able to prevent sites from loading (or make them load more slowly) if said sites don't pay tribute, or prevent you from connecting to your office or your bank from home because your office or bank hasn't paid tribute -- or you won't be able to act on legislative initiatives via this website because this liberal madman hasn't paid tribute. It's not enough to say "other businesses have tiers of service; why can't the internet?" Why can't it? Because we don't want it. Because we know that an internet where we determine what we'll view is better than an internet held captive by corporations and their "packages." Because we believe in a better world than the one corporations run for the profit of their masters. Our will ought to be enough, but this Congress hates you if you're not a CEO. Administer a spanking to your Congressfolk here or here.

Not so long ago, the House passed an amendment to a supplemental appropriations bill that barred money from that bill to be used to build permanent bases in Iraq. But Mr. Bush has said that it'll be up to the next guy to decide whether to bring troops home, and where do you suppose those troops will live in the meantime? Here's a hint: not at Motel 6. Said appropriations bill comes up for consideration in the Senate soon, and the Senate has lived up to its bill as Congress's Better Half despite my misgivings after 11.2.2004, so I'm hopeful. That's no cause for complacency, however; your Senators still need to hear from you.

Transit Workers Union Local 100 President Roger Toussaint began his ten-day stint in jail this week for going on strike, and the TWU will hold vigils daily, starting today and ending Friday, from 3 pm to 6 pm. Vigils will take place at the Manhattan House of Detention, which I believe is also known as "the tombs," at 125 White St., between Centre St. and Baxter St. in New York City. TWU will also join the massive anti-war rally on Saturday at 10.30 am; the labor contingent begins at 19th and Broadway, entering from Park Ave. South. Call United for Peace and Justice at 212.868.5545 for more information.

that's my impression.

Corporate pension plans are underfunded by upwards of $450 billion.  We're told by those forward-looking "globalists" in the "liberal media" that pension plans fail because any sort of entitlement is a bad idea, though that's sort of like saying saving your money and investing it wisely and safely is a bad idea.  We all know the real reason pension plans fail -- failing to invest in pension plans is just another way corporate CEOs mismanage the corporation so they can get eight- and nine-figure severance packages when the corporation crashes and burns.  And this hurt-everyone-but-the-rich Congress (which is back to work today; please take a moment to boo) has just the solution:  H.R. 2830, putatively a pension reform bill, but actually just another corporate-welfare bill after the manner of the Energy Bill passed last year, one which writes in special exemptions for Congressfolks' pet corporations, loosens regulations for investing pension funds as if that were the solution not the problem, and further allows the use of Enron-style accounting tricks to mask the severity of the problem.  I'm starting to get the impression that Congress doesn't care.  There's a damn bumper sticker if there ever was one.  In the meantime, here's where to contact your House Rep, and here's where to contact your Senator, to tell them you know their pension "legislation" lies to the people.

This paragraph, and the next one, will be shorter, I promise.  Back in October I wrote a post I liked very much describing a fictional Bush Mobber describing how he was going to use the Katrina disaster as another tool to destroy the public school system through vouchers, but fat lot of good it did -- the Enzi/Alexander/Dodd/Kennedy voucher bill passed, though it was to be a one-year, "temporary" program.  And guess what?  The stooges in the Senate want to extend the damn thing for another year, thanks to an amendment to H.R. 4939 added by Senators Hutchinson and Landrieu, the latter of whom really ought to show more courage.  Administer a spanking here.

The ACLU is soliciting "letters to the editor" about Tha Bush Mobb's incessant bludgeoning of the Constitution, and has a tool toward that end.  I've read a lot of letters to the editor lately, and there are a lot of Americans -- maybe a lot of them don't think of themselves as particularly smart or courageous -- who have a damn lot to be proud of.  It's a shame that, though it's said to be the most-read section in the newspaper, that the newspapers haven't earned a larger readership in general.  But the letter to the editor is still a viable art form, well worth practicing.

UPDATE.  I can't link to my old host today for some reason, so you can't read the post I describe in paragraph two.  If my old host comes back up, I'll insert the link.  Yes, this is why the blog is no longer at my old host.  It doesn't explain why I haven't been more assiduous in moving those posts over here, however.

ANOTHER UPDATE.  Old host back up; link inserted.  Old layout -- which I liked very much, by the way -- may or may not be included with link.

"money money money," a.k.a. "the rocking horse winner."

According to the Coalition for America's Priorities, 57% of Americans now support preserving or reforming the Estate Tax -- and that number goes up to 68% when poll respondents learn more about the Estate Tax.  Of course right-wingers tout their polls that say an equal or larger number of people support "Death Tax repeal," but people'll support a lot of things if you lie to them about it.  And no doubt Senator Kyl is touting his own plan, which would slash the Estate tax rate by two-thirds and triple the exemption, as "reform," but it's not -- according to United for a Fair Economy, it'll cost at least 75% as much as repeal.  Here's how you contact your Senators today:  go to this contact page, click on their name to go to their website, and click on whatever button allows you to contact them (i.e. "Contact Me"); this will give you a local number you can use while they're not in session.  UFE also has a tool for examining your Senators' voting record on the Estate Tax (scroll down for the "Senate Estate Tax Votes 2000-2005" pdf) as well as a handy list of talking points on the Estate Tax.

Everybody's got a health care plan during an election year, but here's another pig the Senate can't make pretty -- S. 1955, the "Health Care Modernization Act" hardy har har, which allows insurers to "cherry-pick" customers, increases costs to most consumers while decreasing their coverage, and guts consumer healthcare protections by overriding strong state insurance laws.  You see, when right-wingers talk about "states' rights," they don't mean a state's right to enact stronger laws than the federal government does; generally, they mean a state's "right" to oppress black folks.  Here's where to administer the spanking.

Mr. Bush has suggested that Seymour Hersh's article on Tha Bush Mobb's possible plans for an attack on Iran came from "fantasy land" -- which means he didn't read it, because Hersh's article is actually quite fair and balanced, or rather it's what "fair and balanced" used to mean before the Effin' News Channel got their grubby hands on that meme.  But still Mr. Bush won't rule out the possibility of war, and won't even rule out using bunker-buster nukes on "strategic targets" in Iran.  "Strategic" targeting being not all it's cracked up to be to say the least, this is no way to win hearts and minds, though it is a pretty good way to ensure there won't be that many hearts and minds left to win.  Here's where to tell your Congressperson to tell Mr. Bush to use diplomacy with Iran and take the nuclear option off the table.  As you may recall, only Congress can declare war, regardless of what Presidents of both stripes have been doing since World War II, and regardless of what powers Mr. Bush thinks Congress granted him right after 9.11.  I mean, dropping nukes in the Middle East?  Who thinks that's bright?  And who thinks threatening it is good "brinksmanship," or "bluffing"?

penny rants for the day of April 20, 2006.

There is no "shake-up" going on in Tha Bush Mobb.  Tha Bush Mobb's screw-the-facts-we're-still-on-message attitude, which polls suggest no longer fools about two-thirds of the U.S. population, still befuddles the "liberal" media, which reports recent minor administrative shuffling (Bolten for Card, Portman for Bolten, McClellan leaving, etc.) like it's a Category 5 hurricane.  At least the "liberal media" has stopped burying the most subtle administrative change:  Karl Rove drops his policy-oversight portfolio to concentrate on election strategy.  I always thought Rove's job title was a red herring, but now I wonder if Rove's "coordinating" of policy with Congress somehow wasn't working in spite of a ten-seat Senate majority and a thirty-seat House majority (and please understand that by "somehow wasn't working," I really mean "wasn't working because the policy was crap").  So now Karl Rove can go back to doing what he does best:  terrorizing the electorate into electing more knuckle-draggers to Congress.  That is, if he doesn't get indicted first.

This Salon clip (you'll need to watch an ad first) displays Keith Olbermann doing what the site terms "a mean O'Reilly imitation."  Olbermann "imitates" O'Reilly in the way Chevy Chase "imitated" Gerald Ford -- Olbermann doesn't try to sound like O'Reilly, or mimic the rhythm of his speech.  But, merely in doing O'Reilly voce Ted Baxter, I think Olbermann captures the essence of O'Reilly.  Really, it makes me crack up whenever I think of it.  I'm starting to think folks should go on the Factor and simply repeat back to him what he says in a high-pitched, whiny voice.  I feel a performance art piece coming on!

One more question about the Republicans' insistence that since "all politics is local," they'll hold on to their majorities:  if "all politics is local," was Tom DeLay wrong to suggest that the Republicans' agenda was validated because "the nation" returned a Republican majority to Congress in 2004?  If "all politics is local," then a national agenda can't be defended on the basis of the results of an accumulation of local elections.  That's so simple I should have thought of it days ago.

news you can use.

New Jersey residents, take note: New Jersey Citizen Action will hold a townhall forum on Mr. Bush's Medicare Part D drug plan/catastrophic nightmare for seniors tonight, April 18, at 7.00 pm at the North Plainfield Community Center. The North Plainfield Community Center sits at 614 Greenbrook Road, on the corner of Greenbrook Road and Clinton Avenue, in (oddly enough) North Plainfield. U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-6) will attend, as will State Sen. Nicholas Scutari and Assemblyfolk Linda Greenstein and Jerry Green (all D-22). For more information visit New Jersey Citizen Action or contact Mike Olender at 732.246.4772.

According to a report by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, there's a lot of arsenic in a lot of chicken -- investigators found arsenic in half of 155 samples from supermarkets and all of 90 samples from fast-food joints. How does arsenic get in chickens? Simple -- some 70 percent of broiler chickens get fed with arsenic, which, while a known carcinogen, also kills parasites and (I'm guessing this is the larger part of the calculus) fattens chickens up. And it isn't just eating the chicken that's dangerous -- any soil fertilized with chicken manure, and other animals eating chicken litter, are also at risk for arsenic contamination. So happy Tuesday! There is good news -- arsenic can't be used in organic chickens (though I'm sure the big agribusinesses are at work on that right now). The nation's largest chicken producer, Tyson Foods, also claims not to use arsenic. To find other producers who claim not to feed arsenic to their chickens, consult the EatWell Guide at UCS's website.

You may not be aware that, even if you've got all the lights off in your house, many of your appliances still suck power -- and this "standby energy loss" could account for five percent of your energy usage. Could be anywhere, too. Your DVD player tell the time? Keep your cell phone plugged in? Keep your monitor in sleep mode? All those things, and more, are using power while you're not using them. So does your television set, by the way, which is why mine is on a separate power strip than everything else -- it's easier to turn off completely that way. Consult the UCS's page for more tips on how to reduce standby power usage.

no rest for the weary.

Rep. Rob Andrews (D-NJ) has introduced H.R. 2753, the "Public Campaign Financing Act of 2005," which would set up a system of public financing for House elections.  Read the bill here; it won't take long.  I like very much that public financing would be available to anyone who can get 3% of their district's residents to sign a petition (per the bill's amendment to Sec. 501 of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971); I would be happy to sign petitions for Libertarians and Greens and a multitude of others just to get them the same slice of the money pie as Democrats and Republicans.  I don't like that individual campaign contributions will still be allowed -- an army of "Pioneers" and "Rangers" will still be able to recruit individual contributions, just as they do today.  At a cap of $100 (versus the $2000 stipulated in McCain/Feingold), the job will at least be a bit harder in the short term.  Rep. Andrews has also introduced H.R. 3623, which would prevent members of Congress from going into lobbying for five years after they leave office.  I think these bills, whatever faults they might have, earn your support; your House Rep can be found here, as always.  (Be sure to call them at their local offices today, since they're in their home districts until next Monday.)

I've noticed that Senator John McCain, whose rightward lurch is no longer happening under the radar, has accepted an invitation from the nefarious Reverend Jerry Falwell -- quite possibly the godfather of this blog, since my visceral opposition to his controlling, hateful brand of "Christianity" as a youth ensured I'd never become a Republican when I grew up -- to give the commencement address at Mr. Falwell's own Liberty University.  Mr. McCain, you may remember, once called Mr. Falwell "an agent of intolerance" (though McCain's cowardly backtracking a few days later is not as well-remembered as the remark that preceded it).  But the Campaign to Defend the Constitution has put together an open letter asking Mr. McCain to turn down Mr. Falwell's invitation.  It hadn't even occurred to me to ask Mr. McCain not to speak there, partly because I'm not his constituent, and, well, partly because I have a limited tolerance for talking to people who go off the deep end.  But I'm not going to stop you from signing that letter, if you think Mr. McCain's soul can be saved.

Rep. George Miller (D-CA) and Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) have introduced the Reverse the Raid on Student Aid Act of 2006 in their respective Houses.  For once the bill's name isn't a tortured monstrosity designed to fit a cute acronym, and though of course I prefer the above-referenced "Public Campaign Financing Act of 2005" for its brevity and directness, the Muhammad Ali-style rhyme is a vast improvement.  The bill would cut college loan interest rates in half for students and parents, so it's more like putting on a band-aid than changing your diet and exercising, but it'll do.  House Majority Leader John Boehner, who has not done and will not do any shoveling in the Augean stable Congress has become, has dedicated his efforts to more tax cuts for the rich and nothing else -- certainly not interest rate cuts that'd help college kids, most of whom are just going to grow up all Democrat anyway.  He may need some persuading.

penny rants for the day of April 16, 2006.

Harry Reid needs a bit more message discipline when he fights back against Mr. Bush.  When Mr. Bush insinuates that Harry Reid is holding up the immigration bill, Harry Reid can't say first that Mr. Bush is just as trustworthy on immigration as he is on everything else he isn't trustworthy on, and then accuse the Republican Party itself of holding up the immigration bill by tolerating demagoguery from its extreme wing, adding that they don't really want a bill, because then they won't be able to make it an issue in the fall.  Reid ought to stick with the second message and forget the first, because the first message, true though it undoubtedly is, is also a way of ducking the charge.  Meanwhile, almost as if on cue, Bill Frist says he'll bring up the immigration bill again sometime this year, he just doesn't know when.  Because Bill Frist has more important things to do, you know.  Bill Frist is going to repeal that dang Estate Tax, dadgummit, without any dadgum interference from those pesky hurricanes this time, and Bill Frist is gonna make sure no one ever gets turned into a Commie again by watching a flag burn, and dadgummit Bill Frist is certainly going to protect marriage from Those People.  Bill Frist ain't gonna let millions of people in the streets tell Bill Frist what to do.  Bill Frist is bold enough to ignore the popular will.  Remember to visit Bill Frist's 2008 Presidential campaign website at nochance2008.com.

If I still found such things funny, I'd be LOL-ing it up at the Republicans' insistence that they can hold onto the House because "all politics is local."  They might even be right -- more folks think Congress in general is corrupt than think their own Congressperson is corrupt.  But what hubris!  These "local politicians" marched largely in lockstep with the national leadership's far-right agenda between the 2002 midterms and Katrina, and these "local politicians" routinely locked those other "local politicians," the Democrats, out of committee meetings and negotiated bills only between themselves!  That's not very respectful of local politics, now, is it?  Even when the Republicans are right, they're wrong.

AOL can't win without cheating -- their free-thought smothering device, which they term a spam filter, apparently doesn't deliver emails that have the DearAOL.com link, the link you'd use to protest the implementation of said free-thought smothering device.  Try to send an email with the DearAOL.com link and you'll get a bounceback notice saying the message has "failed permanently."  "This proves the DearAOL.com Coalition's point entirely:  left to their own devices, AOL will always put its own self-interest ahead of the public interest in a free and open Internet," said Timothy Karr of Free Press.  I suspect the problem is not insurmountable; perhaps writing "dearAOL dot com" will work better.  Linking someone to this blog, or any of the multitudinous others that link to DearAOL.com, should also work.  I'm not particularly computer-savvy, so I'm sure those among you who are computer-savvy can make other suggestions.

current songs for the day of April 15, 2006.

On May 22 peace and joy will reign in the land, because the Pet Shop Boys will release their first record in over four years!  Fundamental returns to their dance/disco/techno roots; if it returns to their narrative irony roots, all the better -- not that their John Cheever period (comprising 1999's Nightlife and 2002's Release) has been at all unrewarding, but songs like "Hit Music" and "Rent" and "So Hard" are Sondheim-worthy.  Go listen to the first single, called "I'm With Stupid," at their website, cunningly called petshopboys.co.uk.  (Hit the blinking button to enter the site -- I don't know why you have to hit the blinking button to enter the site -- and give it a minute to load.)  I suspect Fundamental will be one of them-there transitional records, like Behaviour.  But I'm still nuts about Behaviour.

I didn't like Kathleen Edwards's "Back to Me" at first, but after a few more listens, I've now worked my way up to "I wish I liked it better."  If you don't know that song by its title, you might know it as "Ways," since nearly every line starts with "I've got ways of..."  That's a mistake:  it's not cleverer to call a song something other than what everyone will call it anyway.  But a lot of the lines sneak up on you -- especially the last line of the chorus, where it's just possible all her ways don't amount to a hill of beans.  I'd have made the two lines before that rhyme, though; it would have been more obsessive -- maybe she thought the chord change would carry it, which admittedly is a common error.  Mainly Edwards reminds me how great Rosanne Cash is.

The other day I realized that Chicago IX, the best-of which more or less sums up the Terry Kath era, doesn't include either of the big hits from Chicago VIII ("Harry Truman" and "Old Days") because Chicago VIII was still in record stores at the time.  Which is really lame, but in the Napster era it's an easily-rectified problem.  I guess a proper Terry Kath sum would include bigger slabs of the two-disc Chicago VII (except for the ballad, Kath owns side three), the 1977 hit "Baby What a Big Surprise" which preceded his death, and even the godfather of all their '80s prom themes, "If You Leave Me Now," although Kath does not actually play on it (producer Jim Guercio plucks acoustic guitar; I'd say Terry Kath must have hated the song, but Kath rarely played acoustic guitar on Chicago songs).  Here's a lyrical oddity, though:  on "Old Days," Peter Cetera expresses nostalgia for things that have not disappeared from the pop culture landscape at the time of its recording.  One almost wonders if that's supposed to be irony, but I'd definitely put that past Chicago.

why pharmacists must fill all prescriptions they receive regardless of their "moral values."

Pharmacists serve the public.

A significant portion of the public uses birth control pills.

Therefore, pharmacists must fill prescriptions for birth control pills.

If you can't fill birth control prescriptions because you don't believe in birth control, then get another job.

What unconscionable selfishness -- Religious Righters want to be public servants, but only want to serve people who agree with them.

When did this stop being America?

penny rants for the day of April 13, 2006: how many times must I tell these pimps!

Seymour Hersh's latest masterpiece examining the possibility of war with Iran is a must-read.  As in, stop what you're doing, right now, and read it.  Done reading?  Good.  As anyone with an Orkut account knows, the youth of Iran really do love American pop culture as much as one of Hersh's sources says.  And, like the youth of America, they lived under Clinton for eight years and now they live under Bush and they don't enjoy it.  One might be tempted, on the basis of these two observations, to conclude (as another of Hersh's sources predicts) that Iranians will rise up against their oppressor as soon as the air strikes come.  But this, also, would be fool's gold, for two reasons.  One, Iraqis lived under a dictator unloved even by his own mother, but after we got rid of him, many of them did rise up -- against our presence.  Two, the youth of America probably love Mr. Bush less than the youth of Iran love Mr. Ahmedinejad, but what did the youth of America do on 9.11?  Rallied around Mr. Bush, like we all did.  And if we attack Iran, Iranians will do the same.  Not that Mr. Bush cares what I think -- he's too busy working on that tobacco-ring in his back pocket.

What did the "liberal media" have to say about the student/labor demonstrations in France?  You know, the ones in which millions protested a law (since removed) allowing employers to fire under-26 workers without cause during the first two years of their employment?  The "liberal media," that same "liberal media" that "hates America," "hates conservative ideas," and is always pushing for new "entitlements" for everybody, they must have loved the demonstrators, right?  Especially because they were, you know, French?  Well, not exactly -- as documented by FAIR and Doug Ireland, the "liberal media" excoriated the protestors for "resisting globalization."  But-wait-there's-more:  many "liberal media" accounts even called the protestors "reactionaries."  You know, because they sought to "restore a distant past" -- one in which governments forced corporations to treat workers as more than chattel.  In other news, people who point out racism are the real racists, people who point out upper-class culpability in income differences are waging class warfare, and people who defend the Fourth Amendment from Mr. Bush's warrant-free wiretapping are traitors.  Why must I suffer such pedantry?

our first-ever "light-posting" notice.

Er, there'll be light posting here during the immediate future -- at least for another day or two, and possibly until Congress gets back from our well-deserved vacation from them.

In the meantime, read the Bob Casey article immediately underneath this post, or poke around in the archives; many action alerts haven't really expired per se, and there's a good bit of useful information in them in any case.

Thanks for reading!

the inevitable "Bob Casey, Jr., and the soul of the Democratic Party" post.

I'm pro-choice, but I respect folks who believe abortion is murder -- nobody on either side of the debate wants more abortions, and I can commune with anti-abortioners a lot more easily than with folks who think marriage needs to be "protected" from gays. And though I have no stake in the matter now, I've long thought that the Democratic Party ought to have more of a "big tent" approach on abortion (which Dr. Dean has tried to promote, though he's done it rather clumsily thus far). So I ought to be excited about the candidacy of Bob Casey the Younger for Rick Santorum's Senate seat, right?

Well, not necessarily. We know that Religious Right folks don't necessarily care about the "free market" or "wise use," that FDR never had to worry about his position on abortion, and that William Jennings Bryan was once the nation's foremost economic progressive at the same time he was the nation's most famous fundamentalist. We know, in short, that there's no symbiosis between the Republican economic agenda and the Republican social agenda -- in fact, as Thomas Frank suggests, the latter is a red herring for the former -- so it should be possible for a Democrat to move right on social issues as cover for moving left on economic ones. This strategy should have been Dennis Kucinich's strategy when he ran for President in 2004, but Kucinich suddenly became pro-choice the day he announced his candidacy. Kucinich's record on every other issue I care about is progressive enough that I would gladly have worked toward his election as President despite his opposition to abortion, but throwing his lifelong opposition to abortion into the water smacked to me of abject cowardice, and though I voted for him during my state's primary, I was never that enthusiastic about his candidacy again.

See where I'm going? Bob Casey, Jr., would not have to meet the Kucinich standard to earn my support, but he would need to get a whole lot closer to that than he's done, and I doubt it's in him to do that. Casey wants to do the job right in Iraq, but doesn't support an exit strategy or a timetable for withdrawal. Casey would have voted for Sam Alito's confirmation, which was plenty worth opposing on grounds that have little to do with abortion. Casey has only recently supported a federal minimum wage increase, while Santorum has actually sponsored legislation toward that end in the Senate. Casey doesn't support single-payer health care (as Messrs. Pennachio and Sandals, his Democratic primary opponents, do) or expanding stem-call research. Casey would allow employers to extend benefits to gay couples in long-term relationships, but doesn't think government should mandate such benefits, nor does he support gay marriage or adoption by gay couples.

Even the good news isn't that good. Casey supports increased federal investment in alternative energy sources, and good for him, but it's easy to do that given that federal investment in alternative energy sources is so small. What amount of investment would he call for, especially vis a vis the vast federal investment in coal and oil? Casey opposes private Social Security accounts, and good for him, but would he raise the $90,000 ceiling on the payroll tax in order to shore up the trust fund? Would he change the flat payroll tax into a progressive tax? Casey also thinks the Bush tax cuts should be rolled back, and good for him, but would he support a more progressive tax code, or targeted tax increases on the rich linked to saving necessary programs?

And while Casey's thinking on abortion isn't the standard right-wing slab of hate, there's not as much for me to support as I'd hoped. Casey has, in the past, expressed support for state and federal funding of contraceptive services, and, more importantly, supports forcing employers and HMOs to cover contraception in their health plans. That second item is near litmus-test for me. Yet Casey opposes forcing pharmacists to fill prescriptions when they claim "moral reasons" for failing to do so -- which he must know, since he's not a dummy, cripples his support for covering contraception in health plans in the first place. I worry, of course, that for Rick Santorum, Casey's positions will probably seem a little too "nuanced" -- maybe Santorum will even call Casey "a flip-flopper," though Casey could describe Santorum's entire 2006 legislative record using that same formulation.

The trouble with Democrats isn't that they're "not connecting" with the right-wing knuckle-dragger wedge enough; it's that they don't neutralize the knuckle-draggers by pushing the economic justice issues that brought them to power in the first place. Rick Santorum's own approval ratings are much lower than healthy for an incumbent, and he has lashed himself so strongly to his party's extreme wing that despite his political acumen I still think he'll lose. But the more pertinent question is: if Bob Casey, Jr. wins, are we going to win? Or is the national Democratic Party going to take a Casey victory as a cue to move far right on social issues without moving left on economic ones?

penny rants for the day of April 8, 2006.

Bob Novak, in paragraph 6 of this column, distorts the "pay-go" amendment by Kent Conrad last month (second paragraph).  He calls the Conrad amendment, which failed by a 50-50 vote, "a Democratic proposal mandating, in effect, tax increases to compensate for higher spending."  "In effect" is the key phrase.  "Pay-go" actually mandated that spending increases be adequately offset, either by tax increases or spending cuts elsewhere.  Of course, Novak's Republican comrades aren't really dedicated to lower spending or fiscal responsibility -- they're devoted to cutting social spending, which, aside from hurting people, doesn't reduce budgets or deficits enough to make a difference.  Novak wouldn't see that, of course, because he's so damn obsessed with cutting taxes.

Very, very interesting poll results on the Casey-Santorum race in Pennsylvania, but I'm not sure they're that instructive.  This poll has Bob Casey the Younger still leading Rick Santorum by 9 points, but almost seven in ten respondents -- are you sitting down? -- apparently had no idea that Casey opposes abortion.  Given that if you look up "pro-life" in the Pennsylvania dictionary you see a photo of Bob Casey the Elder, this is a stunning development.  Moreover, upon hearing that Casey was pro-life -- are you still sitting down? -- enough voters deserted Casey to give Santorum a five-point lead.  Out of pique, perhaps?  We know Casey is going to have more trouble getting pro-choicers to hold their noses than polls have thus far suggested; still, I have to wonder if Rasmussen somehow found the 500 most politically unaware people in Pennsylvania -- not that such a polling strategy doesn't have some merit, since everyone in Pennsylvania gets one vote.

(Hat tip to Taegan Goddard's Political Wire for the second item; also note that I've now milked three paragraphs of one Bob Novak column for two posts.)

UPDATE.  Guess what?  This OpEdNews.com/Zogby poll, from January 2006, comes to the same conclusion the aforementioned Rasmussen poll does -- the more folks find out about Casey's positions, the narrower his lead gets.  In addition, OpEd/Zogby finds that Casey gains little ground with conservatives once they know his positions more thoroughly.  I'm still shocked that people don't know Casey is pro-life.  But getting behind Bob Casey is starting to look like a miscalculation on the order of getting behind John Kerry.  Of course Bush never said all that crap about homosexuality being slightly better than "man-on-dog," so Casey could still win -- but what would that prove?  "Thieves" takes up this question shortly.

manic Friday.

Word on the street is that John McCain -- who's been moving right for several months on social issues in possible preparation for his anointing as the 2008 Republican nominee -- plans to abandon his opposition to Estate Tax repeal when it comes up for a vote again, probably during the first week of May.  (See paragraphs 4-6.)   McCain was apparently prepared to vote for cloture on Estate Tax repeal back in September, before someone in the Senate reminded Bill Frist that stampeding for Estate Tax repeal right after a Category 5 hurricane obliterated a major American port city was probably not the best way to be compassionately conservative.  If I sound obsessed about the proximity of those two events, it's because I was never more ashamed and angry with the United States Senate than I was at that moment, and since dumb Republican Senators need to have everything repeated to them fifty times before they get it, I'll go on repeating it.  Also, Mr. McCain needs to be reminded that out of every 10,000 folks who die this year, some 27 -- twenty-freakin'-seven! -- will pay the Estate Tax this year.  The Estate Tax is not a "death tax" because so few people who die will pay it, and no Northeasterner otherwised pledged to Hillary Clinton will vote for McCain by 2008 if he keeps this up.  There is no popular groundswell for repealing America's most progressive tax, and in a time of Republican deficits, repeal is also a profound betrayal of their vaunted fiscal conservatism.  You may want to be more respectful than I've just been when you call Mr. McCain, because he might respond.  Or you may want to mention that you've valued some of his views in the past and then go into full shame mode, because his ambition for higher office is corrupting him.

Free Press and the Center for Media and Democracy have released a report, "Fake News:  Widespread and Undisclosed," which finds 77 local stations slipping corporate-sponsored "video news releases" -- segments promoting commercial brands and products such as vitamin supplements and porn-free search engines -- into regular news programming.  Their findings cover less than one percent of all "fake news" that gets offered to local stations, so the problem's almost certainly much worse.  Perhaps you're thinking, "porn-free search engines?  What's wrong with that?"  Well, what if that porn-free search engine doesn't work the way it's supposed to and your local station concealed that by running PR for it?  What if corporations produced VNRs that, for example, overstated the benefits (or understated the side effects) of a particular drug?  You deserve better, and fake news violates both the letter and the spirit of their broadcasting licenses -- which come from the government, and therefore from you.  Here's where to contact the FCC and tell them to crack down on "fake news."  Under Kevin Martin (as under Michael Powell) they'll be likely to conclude "no harm, no foul," but then they won't be doing their job.  Anytime the media lies to you, the media harms you.

H.R. 543, which demands a full debate and vote on the Iraq war, was introduced by Rep. Abercrombie (D-HI) last fall; two Republicans whose names you may remember from previous anti-war resolutions -- Walter Jones of North Carolina and Ron Paul of Texas -- have now signed on as co-sponsors, as has one other Republican, Jim Leach of Iowa.  H.R. 543 is a "discharge petition," meaning that once half of the House's members sign it (218, for those of you keeping score at home), the bill bypasses committee and goes right to the floor.  The bill guarantees 17 hours of debate in the House on whether to end the war, and permits amendments, which may include Rep. McGovern's bill to cut off Iraq war funding, Rep. Lee's amendment proscribing permanent bases in Iraq, and Rep. Murtha's bill requiring phased withdrawal (which, contrary to what you may have heard, never came up for a vote in the House).  Toll-free numbers for the House include 1.888.355.3588 and 1.800.828.0498, or you may contact your House reps here.

I also have another action page whereby you may press your Representatives to stand up to Tha Bush Mobb's cynical Medicare Part D drug plan for seniors.  Do I overstate the case by calling it "cynical"?  No, I don't think so -- Part D, as you likely remember, prohibits Medicare from negotiating lower prices with big pharma, forces seniors into a labyrinth of competing plans with coverage gaps, and then locks seniors into their plans for a year even if their health changes or if they chose the wrong plan because Tha Bush Mobb made it so confusing in the first place.  Essentially, it's corporate welfare for big pharmaceutical corporations at the expense of seniors, just as the Iraq war is corporate welfare for Halliburton at the expense of our soldiers.

By the way, Congress is off for the next two weeks due to the Easter Holiday, so they won't be able to hurt us during that time.  As if we needed another reason to love Jesus Christ.  I'm still up for a flash mob to greet our vaunted Congressfolk with boos and catcalls upon their return to work.

responsibility.

Though the University of Vermont in Burlington claims to be one of "among the most progressive employers in the nation," it has an unfortunate history of paying its workers little and actively preventing them from organizing for better wages and conditions.  Then again, that state of affairs probably does make them fairly progressive by today's standards.  Nonetheless, Unionvoice has an email tool with which you may call for a living wage and an end to anti-union interference for the University's workers.

United for a Fair Economy has prepared the "Responsible Tax Pledge," whereby you may pledge your share of Bush Mobb tax cuts, however small, to organizations that fight tax inequality.  (The page has a handy calculator with which you can calculate your share of the tax cuts.) Alternately, if you oppose any part of your Bush Mobb tax cuts going back into the economy in any way (which is the lonely road I walk), you can donate your share of Tha Bush Mobb's tax cuts to the Bureau of the Public Debt.  Of course, in a bizarro economy that mostly creates custodial and waitering jobs and thinks inflated housing prices equal "savings," chances are you're just trying to feed the kids and pay the heating bill, and you can't make either of these protest statements against Tha Bush Mobb tax cuts.  It's almost like that's the idea.

particulate matters.

Tha Bush Mobb EPA is at it again -- this time revising air pollution standards to allow more exhaust from automobiles, agricultural activity, and coal-fired power plants in our air, though there's no shortage of scientific studies linking particulate matter to increases in heart disease and respiratory ailments. I thought I heard some Bush Mobber (possibly Tha Topp Dogg himself) grandstanding about preventing asthma in children recently; apparently he meant "not at the expense of forcing corporations to pollute less." Here is where you may urge them to reconsider their short-sightedness.

American Rights at Work asks us to thank Cingular Wireless for its refusal to interfere in its workers' efforts to organize and collectively bargain. Cingular negotiated its first contract with the Communication Workers of America in 2000, pledging not to interfere, and now some 39,000 Cingular workers belong to a union. Cingular is owned by AT&T, which has also been a fairly union-friendly company lately. But then there's Verizon, from whom I no longer buy service due to their acrimonious labor negotiations of 2003 -- quickly followed by a layoff of 21,000 workers (including 6,000 union) while Verizon's CEO still pocketed $90 million per year.

DeLay ends re-election bid, will resign House seat shortly.

Hallelujah!

and now back to our regularly scheduled program already in progress.

Thanks to recent pro-immigrant rallies, the Senate Judiciary Committee came up with a bill that's better than the nefarious House bill, the PATRIOT Act of anti-immigration bills, but the Judiciary bill still has problems, so no lying down. The ACLU has created this emailing tool, whereby you may communicate to your Senators that they must not bow to racist, anti-immigrant sentiment.

S. 2426, the so-called Cyber Safety for Kids Act of 2006, would require all commercial websites in the United States with material deemed "harmful to minors" to move to a dedicated ".xxx"-style domain within six months of the bill's passage or face the Senate's wrath. Sounds pretty Republican, don't it, but it ain't -- this is a Max Baucus production, with assistance from Mark Pryor and Barbara Mikulski. A few problems: software at the user end can put the power to keep material from kids in parents' hands where it belongs; most porn websites operate from outside the U.S., so this law won't even do what it aims to do, and, natch, there's a lot of potential for abuse -- like, a teen gay counseling website having to relocate to planet .xxx on Tha Bush Mobb's say-so. You think they wouldn't? Advise your Senator here in re the misguided nature of this bill.

The Georgia state legislature has passed a law to create state-funded Bible classes in public school classrooms. No one has ever said you can't mention the Bible's importance in historical or literary contexts in classrooms, but these classes would use the Bible as a textbook, a slap in the face to the millions and millions who came to America to escape real religious persecution. Not to be stopped, the same legislature also passed a bill putting the Ten Commandments on display in county buildings, and not in the historical context the Supreme Court recently said was OK. Both bills head to Sonny Purdue's office for signature, and since he's not as unpopular as Bob Taft is in Ohio (Taft's pressure was very helpful in getting the state school board to strike intelligent design from its science curriculum), he'll probably sign them. Might as well petition him not to, anyway. I didn't even expect Ohio to turn out as well as it did, either.

penny rants for the day of April 2, 2006: freak out!

Katherine Harris's Senate campaign is, according to the Orlando Sentinel, "imploding."  Ms. Harris's interpretation of the Gospels of Mark and Matthew as they pertain to her personal crucible was not her only self-inflicted wound from last week -- first Ed Rollins left, then Ms. Harris said he didn't leave and it was long-time aide Adam Goodman's fault for saying so, then Adam Goodman himself left, and now so has almost everyone else who knows how to run a campaign, and by the way Ms. Harris says this is all the media's fault except in those instances where it's her staff's fault.  But don't count her out yet.  Ms. Harris shares, with Mr. Bush, a certain, what did we used to call it, boldness.  A certain thinking from the gut.  When you know you're right, her gut says, just keep fighting.  Certainly a ten-million-dollar "widow's mite" encourages a lot of thinking from the gut; just ask Tim Michels.  Bill Nelson currently leads Harris by 28 points.

Hell must be having the same heating problems poor people had this past winter, because I find myself agreeing with Jim DeMint, junior Senator from South Carolina.  DeMint -- who said during the 2004 Senatorial election that not only didn't he want gays teaching in public schools, he didn't want single mothers teaching there, either, because it's not like we want good teachers in public schools or anything -- has noted that the vast majority of Congressional earmarks aren't written into laws but into committee reports.  Kinda reminds me of that "corporations have the rights of people" business which never actually appeared in a Supreme Court decision, no matter what Antonin Scalia thinks.  But Mr. Bush does not want to get on a war footing with Congress over this gentleman's agreement, though five Senators have signed a letter to Mr. Bush encouraging him to instruct federal department heads to ignore earmarks if they're not written into laws.  Five Senators about as ideologically diverse as the Senate, too:  Feingold, Bayh, McCain, Coburn, DeMint.  You can't go any further left in the Senate than Feingold.  You can't go any further right in the Senate than DeMint.  Mr. Bush must be waiting for a tap on the shoulder from God.

I don't know about you, but if I were hiring a new White House Chief of Staff, and I'd turned an Twins'-payroll-size surplus into a Yankees'-payroll-size deficit, I wouldn't give the job to my freakin' budget director.  Bush Mobb Budget Directors just seem to fall upwards in Bizarro World America, though -- the previous one, Mitch Daniels, who in 2002 had the chutzpah to propose a wage freeze for American soldiers about to risk their lives in Iraq, is now Governor of Indiana.  One of his very first acts as Governor was to terminate state collective bargaining agreements because Indiana just couldn't afford decently-paid workers anymore boo hoo.

(Hat tip to Taegan Goddard's Political Wire for the first two items.  I now check politicalwire.com more often than I drink coffee, so it really should be on my blogroll.)