Thieves in the Temple.

light posting notice.

There'll be light posting until Congress gets back next week. As Jim Morrison used to say, summer's almost gone.

I feel a little inadequate that I haven't written an affirmation for the anniversary of the Katrina disaster. I guess, at this moment, I'm having trouble gleaning that "hour of sunshine/for a million years of rain" that Stephin Merritt says is worth living for.

God damn Bush.

here...at last...the super-fat Sunday sleep-in edition of the penny rants for the day of August 27, 2006...live!

According to Mr. Bush's new line of dung regarding the Iraq war, we have to fight the terrorists over there or they will follow us here.  Right.  Obviously the follow us here rule doesn't apply to Londoners, whose subway system somehow still got bombed last July despite their government's efforts to fight them there so they don't follow us here.  I think a better way of fighting terrorists is to fight them where they are, rather than starting a war in a country you really, really wanted to invade anyway and creating more terrorists there and everywhere else.

Former Republican House Rep/current MSNBC talking head Joe Scarborough discusses the reaction to his criticism of Mr. Bush , including an 8.15 segment called "Is Bush an Idiot?"  I note that on two occasions, Scarborough first attempts to describe a "conservative" reaction to his criticisms, but quickly corrects himself by describing said reaction as "Republican loyalist."  This disconnect is a fairly constant theme here at "Thieves in the Temple," and in conversations I still have to correct myself, just as Mr. Scarborough did.  Anyway, I wish Joe (who's a "little O'Reilly" in good ways as well as bad) the best in his effort to get the difference between conservatives and Bush Mobbers straight in his own mind.

Speaking of what could have been Joe Scarborough's next job:  Katherine Harris can't stop screwing up before the Lord.  Not too long after her infamous "widow's mite" comment, Ms. Harris has now unloaded thusly: "(i)f you are not electing Christians, tried and true, under public scrutiny and pressure, if you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin...Whenever we legislate sin, and we say abortion is permissible and we say gay unions are permissible, then average citizens who are not Christians, because they don't know better, we are leading them astray and it's wrong..."  Also, by the way, "God is the one who chooses our rulers," meaning, I suppose, that in 2000 God was Katherine Harris.  Her campaign, shifting to the damage-control mode to which it's grown accustomed, repeatedly asserted that she did not mean to offend.  How many times must I tell these pimps!  What you do matters, not what you intend.  Besides, what other intent can we divine from her comments?  That she intended to pander to right-wing knuckle-draggers?

Rick Santorum unbound?  Don't believe the hype.  The August 22 Rasmussen Reports poll has Casey the Younger up 48-40, with Carl Romanelli getting the same number of percentage points (five) as "some other candidate" got last time; if the 7 undecided points all go for Santorum, then it's still Casey by a point.  Even Rasmussen's own analysis seems like it's trying to prop up Santorum a bit:  paragraph one points out that Senator Encyclopedia Brown went from 23 points down in May to 8 points down now, when it's fairly obvious now (never mind how much I gloated about it then) that the 23-point deficit was an aberration, while paragraph two inaccurately states that this is Senator Man-on-Dog's first single-deficit showing when Rasmussen's own chart shows Senator Altered Human Embryos (I'll stop soon) with a single-deficit showing in March.  I think it's far more significant that, though Mr. Santorum (told you I'd stop) spent a lot of money, produced at least one genius ad and several merely misleading ones, and assisted Mr. Romanelli's petitioning effort, the two-term Senator has gained exactly one point over the last month -- and, as Rasmussen helpfully notes, still hasn't matched his high for the year.  I never said the race wouldn't finish close; I just said Rick Santorum would lose it.  Why?  Read over those three nicknames I gave him again.

Meanwhile, Rasmussen gives Republicans another reason to officially Be Worried:  John Ensign only leads Jack Carter by seven points in the most recent Rasmussen poll, and doesn't break 50%.  You can explain the problems all those other beleaguered incumbents are having, but John Ensign?  He should be safe:  he won two House terms in a relatively liberal district, then came within 400-odd votes of beating Harry Reid in 1998, and then pounded Ed Bernstine by 15 points to win Richard Bryan's open seat in 2000, all in a state that ain't that red and ain't as red as he is.  In addition, Ensign and Reid seem to work well together, and Reid hasn't shown that much enthusiasm for the prospect of unseating him.  So if Carter the Son is this close three months before Election Day, then the Republicans ought to be on red alert.  (For the record, the safest Republican seat up in 2006 belongs to the honorable Richard Lugar of Indiana.  No Democrat filed to oppose him.)

I planned to bash Joe Lieberman's head in a little more for pretending that "partisanship," in this era, isn't mostly a creation of far-right knuckle-draggers, but I've trod that grass into dirt already, and I'd rather use this occasion to correct something I said a while back.  I really, really, really wish I hadn't said, in describing our relationship with those who call us traitors and terrorist-symps, "(t)here is a time for war and a time for peace."  That's just flat-out false; we're not at war with any of our fellow-Americans.  Ecclesiastes also says "there is a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing," and that quotation explains my feelings a lot better.  I'm going to leave the original post as it is, but if I ever collect these little rants of mine into a book, I'll probably change it then.

on the subject of several large government programs that comprise an important part of our heritage as Americans.

Inexplicably, both Mr. Bush and Congressional leaders are still making noises about "reforming" Social Security, which to them means handing it over to stockbrokers, who, perhaps not coincidentally, are the only folks doing well during this economic "recovery." If a stockbroker told me it was hot in July, I'd go outside to check for myself. Pimp-slap the bastards using Unionvoice's handy petition; also, you can download a petition that you can get your co-workers and neighbors to sign. But I'm damn tired of hearing about this particular Republican burglary plan, almost as tired as I am of hearing this particular Republican burglary plan presented as a plan to help us. How many more insults must I endure?

Believe it or not, H.R. 676 (a John Conyers production with about thirty-five co-sponsors) would expand Medicare so that it would provide comprehensive health care for all Americans, including prescription drugs, physician's care, dental care, eye care, hospitalization, and psychiatric care. Of course, a Republican Congress would never allow a vote on such a bill, and you may recall that a solidly Democratic House and Senate couldn't get it done in 1994, either, despite the willingness of many Republicans in the Senate to broker a deal. But, to be honest, I don't like some of the particulars. The plan would finance itself with a five percent tax on wages and an 0.5% (that's one-half of one percent, or one two-hundredth, for you John Podhoretz fans out there) tax on stock and bond trading. That five percent figure would replace whatever you're contributing to your employer's health plan now, and though it wouldn't be a good deal for me (I contribute a little over 2%, by my reckoning), I imagine it would be for a lot of other people. But not only don't I like the fact that stock trading gets taxed far less than wages, I don't think a tax is even necessary. Our health care system already costs more than a universal health care plan would cost, because uninsured folks don't get turned away in emergency rooms, and ER care costs a bundle. A smaller income tax (more like the 2 percent figure I mentioned) might be better -- or, cutting out the corporate welfare cancer and/or the earmark cancer from the current budget might be better. Would I settle for H.R. 676? I just might, but I would never have introduced it, because (how many times must I tell these pimps!) you never begin negotiations with what you'd settle for. If you feel the way I do, or if you feel more supportive of the plan, you may want to contact your Representative, at his/her home office, and share your concerns.

I tumbled heels over head through empty sky toward the school building, which sat on a cloud.

I was all set to tell all y'all about the hearing on the NYPD's proposed "parade" rules intended to stifle peaceful dissent, but the NYPD withdrew the proposals yesterday.  Go buy yourself something nice if you wrote the mayor, the police commissioner, and/or your councilperson (if you're a NYC resident).

New York cable news channel NY1, owned by Time Warner, wouldn't permit Democratic anti-war candidate Jonathan Tasini to debate incumbent Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton as part of its series of televised debates.  Why?  Because Tasini couldn't raise $500,000 and therefore, in NY1's view, did not "represent" the Democratic party.  Though he's, like, against the Iraq war, and most Democrats -- excuse me, most Americans oppose the Iraq war now.  I do so love it when people worship mammon.  The above link contains contact info for the two big poobahs at NY1, in case you want to give them what-for.

Though I oppose the sort of permanent welfare state that Lyndon Johnson helped create, I'm not a cruel and heartless bastard -- for example, I think six months of unemployment isn't enough in a culture that thinks it's OK to lay people off just to increase profits.  So it goes with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the program that "replaced" welfare in 1996.  The Department of Health and Human Services has drafted unnecessarily rigid rules that will hamstring states when they develop their TANF programs -- for example, they won't give states the leeway to count many of the barriers poor people face (language, education, rehabilitation) when determining someone's needs.  Conservatives used to argue that the biggest government should do the least because the smallest government knew best, but those who have stolen the mantle of "conservative" have become just the sort of hifalutin deep-thinkers they always said they hated.  The "deep thought" guiding this particular set of rule changes, I guess, is "simplify government," just like they wanted to "simplify" away the Estate Tax and higher tax brackets.  Anyway, the Coalition on Human Needs provides a handy PDF so you can develop your comments on the rule changes to HHS.  Once you've crafted your comments, here's where to submit them.  You've got until August 28, which is this coming Monday.

OK, that's enough homework for today.  Maybe too much, in fact.  This is summer break, right?

revenge of the italics hammer!

Warrantless wiretapping defenders, such as James S. Robbins, continue to act like the facts don't exist.  Hell, they continue to act like arguments don't exist -- or worse, that arguments put the country in danger.  Mr. Robbins thinks it compelling to note that Mr. Bush has only claimed the right to listen in on "known or suspected al-Qaeda operatives."  Hurrah!  Bush hasn't been stupid enough to come out and say he wants to be a despot!  All praise Bush!  Don't you think, Mr. Robbins, that if Mr. Bush was really listening in only on "known or suspected al-Qaeda operatives," he could get a damn warrant?  Do you think he'd get a warrant if he said, "I need to tap Harry Reid, because Harry Reid has been critical of me lately and you can't criticize the Commander-in-Chief during wartime"?  Or "Rupert Murdoch is my homey, but he's been too cozy with Hillary Clinton lately, and she's with that other party, you know, and I want to know if they have plans to take me down"?  You need to convince a judge that your suspicions warrant surveillance, otherwise you can abuse your power without anyone being able to stop you.

For Mr. Robbins, of course, that point doesn't even exist.  He blunders on, suggesting that the enemy is "agile and adaptive" and that technology has advanced to the point that we need new, unconstitutional tools.  He also refers to "the need for circumstances that require swift action."  Can Mr. Robbins give examples, hypothetical ones of course, supporting any of these contentions?  No, he cannot.  It would give aid and comfort to the enemy to defend such an argument, I suppose.  More to the point, what does Mr. Robbins make of the repeated warnings from FBI agents in the field before 9.11?  What does he make of the Presidential Daily Briefing of 8.6.01 that announced Mr. bin Laden's intentions?  All of these could have stopped 9.11 without destroying the Fourth Amendment, but Mr. Robbins seems as blissfully unaware of counterarguments as he is of the notion that assertions require proof.

It gets better, of course:  the FISA law Congress passed and which Mr. Bush has repeatedly violated already answers Mr. Robbins's points.  The FISA law already allows the President to order a wiretap and get the warrant later.  Up to seventy-two freakin' hours later, in fact.  And these FISA judges?  Foreign intelligence is all they do.  They don't do injuries.  They don't do takings.  They do foreign intelligence, and only foreign intelligence.  Hey, Mr. President, you need a warrant at three in the morning on a Sunday?  They get out of bed and they give it to you.  At least, that was how it was before Mr. Bush arrived -- zero requests denied in twenty-five years.  But after Mr. Bush arrived, according to a 12.29.05 UPI report, FISA denied 6 warrants in 2003 and 2004 alone, and "modified" 179 requests for warrants in those same years.  How many requests did they modify in the 25 years before that?  Two.  Two!

I'm not going to apologize for sounding like a broken record about this, nor do I harbor the delusion that anything I've said, reasonable though it may be, will induce any reaction from a Bush supporter except "well, do you want the terrorists to win?"

No, I don't want the terrorists to win.  Obviously.  A deaf, dumb and blind infant could see that.

But if we're going to allow this sort of thing to happen, then maybe the terrorists already have won.  Maybe the greatest experiment in democracy the world has ever known is already a failure.  Maybe we ought to just give up, plug into the latest world-class TV show on HBO, and let the cowards and the weaklings and the emotional cripples rule America.

Nah!

In case you were wondering, Working for Change has an action page, and so does True Majority.

you say "macaca," I say "why not just say 'that kid'?"

MoveOn wastes no time creating a petition demanding that the Republican National Committee withdraw its support of Virginia Senator George Allen after Mr. Allen referred to an Indian-American volunteer for his opponent's campaign with the word "macaca."  The former Confederate flag-waving, Confederate history month-declaring, MLK Holiday-opposing Senator is a cagey bastard, it's true:  he shows off his voluminous knowledge of foreign racial epithets ("macaca" apparently emanates from Belgium and refers unflatteringly to North Africans), while his most devout supporters dismiss the entire incident as more liberal PC hand-wringing.  But whatever cleverness he displays in this life, Mr. Allen will still have to count the cost in the next one, just like the rest of us.

If you haven't yet commented against proposed FCC rule changes that would permit one media conglomerate to own multiple outlets across multiple platforms in a single market, Consumers Union makes it easy for you.  Good timing, too, as the "liberal media" shunts bigger stories off their front pages this week because some guy 'fessed up to killing a seven-year-old beauty queen all those years ago.  It's no accident that when more media outlets get gobbled up by fewer owners, news porn goes up and respect for media outlets goes down.

Speaking of bigger stories:  a Michigan federal court has struck down the NSA warrantless-wiretapping program as unconstitutional.  Which, of course, anyone who thought about it for a second knew would one day happen, as did anyone who heard Bush Mobb apologists completely avoid the warrantless aspect of the issue while yelling about it.  No doubt a bunch of right-wingers have their shorts in a bunch about "activist judges" and such, and unfortunately they're currently the loudest noises in the room of American discourse (mainly because they're also the emptiest wagons), so we still have work to do.  When the Senate gets back, they'll likely try to ram the NSA warrantless wiretapping program through as law, which in and of itself will not magically make the Fourth Amendment go away, except in the minds of Roberts and Alito and maybe Anthony Kennedy, too.  So, like I said, we still have work to do.

just a good ol' boy/never meanin' no harm.

Senator George Allen's team of crack linguists fails him at a rally.

Allen's campaign later said that "macaca" isn't a racist remark per se but is just a word he and his gang of crack linguists made up to mean "shit-head."  Well, that's much better.  And when he wore that Confederate flag pin on his lapel as a youth, he wasn't being a racist; he was being a rebel.  How quickly right-wingers embrace post-structuralist ambiguity about the relationship of signifier and signified when it's their ass in the fire.

UPDATE. Hey, everybody, I apologize for dropping one of the Seven Words in the above paragraph. I just couldn't think of another way of getting the point across. Thus endeth a streak of some 315-odd days without uttering a single Really Bad Word in this blog, though I've been tempted plenty of times, what with the way Congress acts and all.

Brian Westbrook slips through brick wall, scores touchdown; film at 11.

The NYPD has proposed new regulations that would, guess what, curtail peaceful protest. No group of 35 or more people could gather without first getting a permit from the police, and any group of 2 or more bicyclists who travel down a public street and violate any law or regulation could be arrested for "parading without a permit." You'd think the NYPD would avoid causing the New York Post to agree with antiwar protestors again, but the NYPD has apparently reached the point where all they do is build walls. You could write Mayor Michael Bloomberg and ask him to withdraw the proposed rule, by using his web email form, by sending a letter to Mr. Bloomberg at City Hall, New York, NY 10007, or by faxing him a letter at 212.788.2460. (United for Peace and Justice helpfully points us to the text of the new rule here.)

Common Cause has released the second "Wolves in Sheep's Clothing" report, describing "Astroturf" groups who take gobs of corporate telecom money so they can pretend to be "grassroots" groups "supporting" the corporate agenda. Common Cause also has an email-writing tool opposing the big telecoms' plan to turn the internet into a pay-to-play playground, if you haven't signed it yet. You may want to mention some of the findings of the Common Cause report.

As suggested earlier, many USDA-certified organic milk producers use cows who spend most of their lives in crowded, polluted feedlots, and of course these producers are fighting to weaken USDA organic certification standards. I've suggested buying from small, local producers in the past, but now I have some more tools for you, courtesy Union of Concerned Scientists: the Cornucopia Institute's scorecard rating 68 organic milk producers, and the Eat Well guide, with which you can search for good food by zip code. Of course, there's also Local Harvest, a proud occupant of my "struggle" box on the left column of this blog. (Actually, I'm proud to have them; I have no idea if they're proud to be here.)

(In case you were wondering, yes, just like New Order, the title is the last thing that goes on.)

nuns fret not.

In lieu of action alerts (and the torrent of sarcasm that inevitably accompanies them), here are some readings.

A woman and her boyfriend eat only food produced within 100 miles of their Philadelphia apartment for 12 days.  I hate to give the ending away, but she feels better and healthier.  I experienced something similar back in 1998, when I cut my carb portions in half; suddenly I craved fruits and vegetables and water.  The article also points to several websites that might aid you if you were to attempt a similar endeavor.  My Kung Fu ain't that good yet, but someday it will be.

The incorrigible Alexander Cockburn and the less incorrigible Jeffrey St. Clair run down Ned Lamont's victory over Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut Democratic primary last week, and when you read it, you'll slap your forehead several times.  As in, I would have thought of that if I hadn't been rooting so hard for Lamont/against Lieberman.  To wit, from paragraph 5:  "Today the press is agog at what the political pundits are calling an exhibition of the power of the bloggers.  We don’t see it that way.  $4 million in greenbacks carries a lot more clout than electronic drizzle from the blathersphere."  That $4 million would be the money Mr. Lamont gave his own campaign, from the $90 to $300 million he's reportedly worth.

we're on vacation; they're not.

Either of two Senate bills introduced right before the break would improve automobile fuel economy.  The Dianne Feinstein-Olympia Snowe production S. 3543 would require automobile manufactures to improve their fleet average 10 mpg by 2017, hence the bill's nickname, "Ten in Ten."  Meanwhile, the Barack Obama-Richard Lugar-Joe Biden production S. 3694, less modestly entitled the "Obama-Lugar-Biden Fuel Economy Reform Act," would require manufacturers to increase overall fleet fuel economy by four percent per year.  Of course, "fleet averages" allow automobile manufacturers to ignore SUV fuel economy somewhat (they could bump up fuel economy more in other models to achieve the "average"), and I don't know if the bill defines a "fleet" as all the cars sold in a year, versus all the models -- if SUV mileage lags, and SUV sales are big, the bills do less.  These are questions worth directing to your Senator, and in any case either bill would improve current matters.  Union for Concerned Scientists has the letter.

Meanwhile, the Securities Exchange Commission will consider rules requiring mutual funds to have independent chairpersons and boards.  Mutual fund boards tend to rubber-stamp CEO pay and favor the companies they invest in over their shareholders, but my God, such a rule change sounds almost too good to be true.  Possibly the SEC would really really like to hear a bunch of folks saying that business knows how to regulate itself quite fine thank you very much and that we don't need more rules telling us what to do.  You may want to say something about that.  Especially since the SEC recently adopted rules requiring corporations to disclose CEO pay packages as a single number, including perks, stock options, and "golden parachutes," this after receiving 23,000 comments.  Deadline for commenting on the mutual funds rule is August 21, which is closer than I thought.

three alerts plus quick snark.

Sorry for the late notice, but good citizens will march for a cease fire and Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon today in Philadelphia, from 4.30p-6.30p. The march will gather on the west side of City Hall at 4.30, begin at 5.30, and end at the Federal Building at 6th and Market, presumably at 6.30p. Israel's attack has destroyed Lebanon's infrastructure and its blockade prevents food and medical aid from reaching Lebanese civilians. It sure looks like a big military victory for Israel now, but the statue of Saddam falling sure looked good for us, too, and since then we've made lots of enemies. Did I mention that a big chunk of Israeli firepower comes from your tax dollars? March co-sponsors include the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC Philly); the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Philly); Bubbes and Zaydes for Peace in the Middle East; and Jewish Voice for Peace (Philly Chapter), from whom I received this alert.

Rep. Conyers has released a report, provocatively entitled "The Constitution in Crisis," accusing Mr. Bush of breaking 26 laws while in Congress. You can read the report here and then you can ask the mainstream media when they're going to cover it. So far only CNN and the National Review have covered it.

Whether through incompetence or malice, the Department of Homeland Security has proposed a rule holding employers liable for violating immigration law if they continue to employ workers who get "no-match" letters. What's a no-match letter? A no-match letter tells you that the Social Security number you gave your employer doesn't match SSA records. Sounds reasonable -- until you consider that there are plenty of legitimate reasons you might get a "no-match" letter. What if your employer read a "7" in your Social Security number as a "2," for example? Here's what you can do about that.

The Brits have apparently foiled a massive terrorism plot. Good for them, but (as with the 7.7 Underground bombings) it sure does give the lie to Mr. Bush's repeated excuse that "we took the fight to terrorists in Iraq so we wouldn't have to fight them at home." Being a member of the reality-based community, I prefer fighting them where they are, so you don't create more of them all over the place.

onward.

My Representative tells me that we're winning the war against "sewage blending" the EPA began waging on us last year.  Yours may have been one of almost 100,000 comments the EPA received after they proposed permitting publicly-owned treatment works to divert waste streams right into your drinking water, hence the moniker "sewage blending."  The EPA abandoned their "sewage blending" rule in 2005 and plans a "compromise" rule, while the Interior Appropriations bill for 2006 allocated zero funding to the rule.  Tha Bush Mobb's EPA could decide to resuscitate the rule, I suppose, but we'll be ready for them.  More details as they arrive.

For some folks, compromise means never having to say what you stand for.  It's not quite like that for Arlen Specter, since his party is full of crazy people at the moment, but if adhering to the spirit of compromise means compromising with Tha Bush Mobb, then what's the real difference?  Specter couldn't rush his pro-warrantless wiretapping bill through Judiciary before recess, and that means we have a whole month to pound and pound our Senators' phone lines with our passionate objection to writing law that expressly violates the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.

Ted Stevens's telecommunications bill -- you know, the one in which the internet isn't a truck, but a bunch of tubes -- also did not get a vote before the recess.  Not only does it turn the internet into a pay-to-play playground that bars the little guy from playing, it also includes nefarious audio and video broadcast flag mandates.  Moreover, it includes a provision that could imprison webmasters who don't post approximately two hundred million warning signs on sexually-explicit sites.  Problem with that is, the vast majority of adult websites are hosted outside the United States.  Where, obviously, American law enforcement can do nothing.  And the provision doesn't stop with porn sites, of course -- sex ed sites, teenage advocacy groups, and other websites not exactly trafficking in shallowness and sensationalism also get caught in the dragnet.  Read more about this odious provision and then call your Senators and urge them to reject it.

stay on the offensive.

We may be on vacation from Congress until the end of the month, but they're not on vacation from us, so here are a few more goodies.

You can click here to tell your Congressfolk to pass a real minimum wage increase, not a minimum wage increase attached to a poison pill. Or you could use the tools in the upper left-hand corner, which I'm planning to revamp a bit, to find more local phone numbers for your Congressfolk, and use the Unionvoice letter as a sort of phone script. Or you could just speak from the heart, since it isn't tough to connect to how you feel about Republicans wanting minimum wage workers to wait to get a raise until the super-rich get even more millions of dollars in welfare handouts that they don't need.

The federal government is, of course, still working, even if its putative Chief Executive is spending the month at his ranch. The EPA still wants comments on proposed rule changes governing pollution discharge from concentrated animal feeding operations, also known as factory farms. Ever hear of streams in the midwest literally running with hog doo-doo? That's what factory farms do. Factory farms also make animals weaker by breeding only for meaty animals (as opposed to, you know, hardy animals) and pumping them full of antibiotics so that successive generations can't fight off disease as well. Of course, Tha Bush Mobb's EPA wants to make it voluntaryfor factory farms to jump through government hoops; and they'll only be punished if they're caught dumping stuff they're not supposed to dump. How diligently do you suppose a Bush Mobb EPA will be looking for rule-breakers? Here's where to find out more about how to write the EPA a comment; comments are due on August 29.

NYC peace events this week.

Tomorrow sees a day of coordinated national actions targeting the nefarious nuclear and war profiteer the Bechtel Group.  In New York City, groups including United for Peace and Justice, Codepink, and Peace Action New York State will protest outside Bechtel's New York City offices at the Northwest Corner of 21 East 40th Street at Madison.  Event begins at 12 pm; go here for more information.

On Thursday, United for Peace and Justice/NYC and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee/NYC plan to picket the offices of New York Senators Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton and demand that they support an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon.  Picketing takes place during the evening rush hour:  5.30 pm at Schumer's office on 757 3rd Ave. (between 46th and 47th Sts.) and 6.00 pm at Clinton's office at 780 3rd Ave. (between 48th and 49th Sts.).  Schumer and Clinton have been fairly vociferous supporters of the immoral Iraq war as well.

Didn't I say we're off from Congress, but they're not off from us?  Yes, I believe I did.

Estate Tax gutting? Denied!

We still had 41 real votes against Estate Tax near-repeal last week, even with the mininum-wage hike attached; basically the same cast of characters voted against, including Republicans Chafee and Voinovich and Democrats Wyden, Pryor and Landrieu. (Memo to Joe Lieberman: I know you're trying to save your career and all, but you should have shown up for this vote.) (Memo to Robert Byrd: you're a hero to me for your opposition to the Iraq war, but your re-election bid is not in so much trouble that you should have been seduced by the mining industry goodies thrown into that bill.) Of course, I say 41 real votes for a reason: Bill Frist, whose Presidential campaign website may still be found at nochance2008.org, joined the vote against moving forward with the bill so he could bring it up again later. If Bill Frist wants to keep dragging out these "legislative" "initiatives" that no one but a few people with too much money want, then fine: he can explain to America's dwindling number of actual conservatives how he presided over an eight- or nine-seat swing in the Senate. In the meantime, you may want to thank your Senators, first consulting this roll call vote to make sure they voted the right way. Hell, thank Pryor, Landrieu, and Wyden, too, while you're at it, because they're going to need you to stay strong.

Tha Bush Mobb said they'd abide by the Supreme Court's 5-3 decision invalidating their military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay -- and then promptly started pressuring Congress to pass legislation rubber-stamping those tribunals. Using the legislative branch against the judicial branch in this manner insults my intelligence. Passing a law to your liking is not an amulet against the Constitution. But it seems more and more likely that this Congress doesn't (or won't) grasp this simple notion, so I guess we ought to go ahead and remind them not to be pedants, or lackeys for Tha Bush Mobb. (Tha Bush Mobb's proposed legislation is really a stinkeroo -- here are more details.

As of the end of last week, some 900 Lebanese and 60 Israelis, mostly civilians and many of them children, had died as a result of the Israeli/Lebanon conflict. The U.N. Security Council meets as we speak to discuss a peace plan, but I don't see a whole lot of good coming from that. It is not our place to trust our leaders; it is their place to trust us. I'll be posting a list of gatherings that protest the conflict soon; meanwhile, TrueMajority helps you communicate your demand for a cease-fire to your Congressfolk.

the home stretch.

Even more organizations make it easier to express your opposition to H.R. 5970, which extorts Estate Tax near-repeal for the minimum wage increase Democrats have sought for so long. The American Friends Service Committee (a.k.a. the Quakers, or, in Cliff Kinkaid's fractured worldview, "radicals") sponsor a toll-free number at 1.800.459.1887. You'll have to call this toll-free number twice, once for each Senator. As Senator Kennedy pointed out, Congress didn't attach any strings to its own pay-raises; why attach strings now to raises for the least among us? (It doesn't matter whether Senator Kennedy voted to raise his own pay, since he's been pushing a min-wage increase since approximately 1377.)

The Senate will soon consider the nefarious S. 3696, "The Veterans' Memorials, Boy Scouts, Public Seals, and Other Public Expressions of Religion Protection Act." It's almost as if they couldn't pass it unless they put "veterans" and "Boy Scouts" in the title, and indeed it's the same bait-and-switch as the House bill that claimed to "protect" religious expression: it doesn't actually protect anything, but simply cuts off payment of attorneys' fees and out-of-pocket expenses if you bring a church-and-state case to a federal court and win. Not win or lose, mind you. Win. Which still sounds like discrimination to me, actual discrimination that denies a class of people the same rights as others, not the kind of "discrimination" right-wingers crow about which denies a class of people more rights than others. This is one of those times words fail to capture my anger. Perhaps calling my Senators and telling them what-for will make me feel better.

As covered here not long ago, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has proposed a standard for labeling "grass-fed" meat, but, surprise, surprise! The wording is just ambiguous enough to allow for the mislabeling of some grain-fed animals as "grass-fed." Grass-feeding, as we know, gets the animals outdoors more, which is better for them and thus better for the meat coming from them, and it keeps them away from the sort of engineered grain that tends to wreck immune systems over generations, but some companies like to grain-fed their animals for the majority of their lives and then feed them a little grass at the end, which is the kind of chicanery that seems to fool governments more easily than it fools schoolteachers. Union of Concerned Scientists provides "the powerful web option" so you can get your comments in to the Department of Agriculture. Comments must be received by August 10, which is one week from today.

And, that's right, after this week we get a month's vacation from Congress. But are our Congressfolk getting a month off from us? Hell no!

(Hat tip to New Jersey Citizens Action for first item.)

no, you are not a sorcerer.

According to United for a Fair Economy, the Senate will vote Friday on H.R. 5970, which would extort a minimum wage increase in exchange for slashing Estate Tax-related revenues by 75%. If the bill passes, minimum wage workers would see an annual wage increase of $4,400, while the average tax break handed out to zillionaires would be -- dig this -- $1,400,000. As I've previously said, I don't like to make arguments with averages, but these averages are hard to dismiss. UFE's toll-free number is 1.800.459.1887; leave a short message with the front desk and then with the Legislative Assistant on Taxes. UFE also has a list of Senators' phone numbers here. UFE also has a handy page for you to write a letter-to-the-editor excoriating H.R. 5970. This bill looks like one of those Karl Rove tricks, whereby Republicans run ads touting Democratic votes against H.R. 5970 as "votes against working families" or some such. If it works, the "liberal" media will hail Karl Rove's "genius" at getting more Republicans elected (or, more likely, saving so many Republican seats), without noting that only their own dereliction of duty in reporting the ugly truth about H.R. 5970 made it possible.

Indianapolis library staff organizes union; library board refuses to recognize union. What humiliationg, after already losing overtime pay for Sunday work, never seeing annual cost of living raises, and losing a third of their staff over the last ten years, all of which makes for overworked librarians and undersatisfied customers. You may ask the library board to recognize the union here. What do you suppose the library board is afraid of -- that the library will help disseminate wisdom to the citizens who pay taxes to use it, as it's supposed to do? No, that's a serious question -- is this a way to destroy the library? I bet Dick Lugar's Indianapolis was different.

seven ham-fisted swords of death and doom and terror and whatnot.

Jewish Voice for Peace sponsors a petition calling for all parties in the current Israel/Lebanon conflict to stop the fighting, and for the United States to use its influence with Israel toward this end.  Israel would have a tough time of it over there without American weapons, but this fact has changed the playing field very little over the years.  Some have said that the U.S. has done so little work on a cease-fire that they must not really want it.  I don't know if that's true, but I do know it doesn't matter.  The right thing to do is the right thing to do.  The petition does not excuse Hezbollah attacks against Israeli civilians, by the way.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bush seizes an opportunity and renominates the nefarious John Bolton to the post of U.N. Ambassador.  There may or may not be enough votes for a filibuster at present, but Mr. Voinovich of Ohio has reconsidered his opposition to Mr. Bolton, saying he's done better than he expected and (of course) that in these difficult times we should give him a vote of confidence.  Has Mr. Voinovich considered that maybe the reason these times are difficult is because of the arrogance of men like Mr. Bolton?  In any case, Bolton will keep his job until January of 2007, no matter how bad things get in the world or at the U.N., no matter how disinterested Mr. Bolton is in, say, world debt or Darfur.  We're the people and we don't have to stand for a damn thing.  Council for a Livable World has the requisite email tool.

Finally, for your edification, FAIR recapitulates recent history in debunking the notion that "Hezbollah/Hamas provoked an attack on Israel," which one can only believe if one thinks Middle Eastern conflicts began approximately three weeks ago.  The highlight is the four-paragraph quotation from the incorrigible Alexander Cockburn, who takes us into the region's "pre-history," namely as far back as June 9, 2006.