Thieves in the Temple.

"behind every dark cloud, there's another one."

Bill Frist announces that he's not running for President in 2008 -- meaning that I can't joke about his Presidential campaign website being at nochance2008.org anymore. But never does one door close but another door opens, and it may be that putative doctorate Newt Gingrich always deserved the honor of a nochance2008.org website more than Mr. Frist did. Dig what Tha Newtsta said to Fortune a few weeks ago: "I'm going to tell you something, and whether or not it's plausible given the world you come out of is your problem...I am not 'running' for president. I am seeking to create a movement to win the future by offering a series of solutions so compelling that if the American people say I have to be president, it will happen."

So if I hear these solutions -- you know, defend God in the public square, privatize Social Security, "simplify" the tax code, provide "patriotic education" for our children -- and I'm not compelled so much as annoyed or disgusted, I guess that's also "my problem." If Newt's votaries never materialize in sufficient numbers, of course, that's his problem.

I got yr class struggle right here!

Maybe, just maybe, I went a bit overboard with the cutting remarks yesterday. But I didn't tell any lies. And no Christs were actually hurt during the writing of yesterday's post.

As part of my penance, I thought I'd point you to this article that proves that Democratic Senator-elect Jim Webb was worth the hundred bucks I gave him and not just because he pushed that clown George Allen out of office. After reading Mr. Webb's dissection of American economic policy over the last quarter-century, I did briefly wonder why he was a Republican for so damn long. Then I remembered that plenty of Bush voters also think corporations have too much power. No, really. I've read them on freerepublic.

(Hat tip to The News Dissector.)

holiday action!

The orgy of mass consumption that Jesus Christ died for all those years ago is upon us, and this means, no doubt, that we'll all be using our credit cards heavily over the next month or so. We rarely stop to think, of course, of the multitudinous ways credit card companies squeeze us. Happily, Consumers Union goes on the offensive and helps you tell your Representative to end such dubious practices as retroactive rate increases, over-limit fees for pre-approved charges, and late fees for payments postmarked by the due date. That's just part of a very long list Consumers Union has for Santa Congress -- and some of the items on that list appear to be addressed in actual bills, which may now have a chance of moving to a vote.

That other holiday, during which we feast in celebration of our annihilation of Native American cultures, is also upon us, and the Union of Concerned Scientists reminds us during this festive season that we ought to eat turkeys labeled "organic" or "raised without antibiotics." Turkeys normally get shot up with so damn many antibiotics as a preventive measure that bacteria quickly become resistant, and when that bacteria makes you sick, antibiotics won't work as well. UCS also sponsors a petition telling the nation's big turkey producers to stop pumping the poor birds up with these drugs. It's bad enough they all have to die -- or be part of an annual "pardoning" ceremony at the White House.

And, by the way, you may not want to buy your "organic" turkeys at Wal-Mart: the Cornucopia Institute has filed a formal legal complaint with the USDA charging Wal-Mart with selling non-organic food and calling it organic. Was it really only a year ago that Congress forced the USDA (in an Appropriations bill) to relax its organic standards because the big boys couldn't compete with the little guys boo hoo? Why, yes, I do believe it was. And we see quite clearly that regulations always cause cheating, because cheating always stops when regulations get relaxed. Corporations never break rules when the rulemakers get permissive. Just like children -- who are, in my experience, far more charming and magical than corporations.

four sticks.

These lame, lame duck Congressfolk (now's a good time to boo) are in session for a few more weeks, and Tha Bush Mobb wants them to legalize its warrantless wiretapping program. Moreover, it wants Congress to prohibit lawsuits against the big telecoms that aided their illegal effort -- since, after all, laws are only for poor people to follow, and making corporations follow the law is too much a burden on the economy, boo hoo. Administer a pimp-slap here.

The return of the Democrats to power in Congress should grease the skids for the long-delayed passage of H.R. 1696, the Employee Free Choice Act, but I wouldn't take that for granted if I were you. Ms. Pelosi no doubt hears the media mantra that she must never move from the center if she wants to keep power. Some 200 House Reps have signed on as co-sponsors (including a few who lost their jobs to Democrats a few weeks ago), so I don't think she has any excuse. And if she hears from you, then she certainly doesn't have any excuse.

Mr. Bush made the requisite noises about "bipartisanship" in the wake of his "thumping," but then promptly renominated six right-wing judges even the Gang of 14 wouldn't even consider voting upon. Plus he renominated John Bolton, counting strawberries as we speak, to the U.N. Ambassador's post. Plus he renominated alleged horse-race handicapper Kenneth Tomlinson to the Chair of the Broadcast Board of Governors. I told you they'd kick you in the teeth. Here's where you kick back.

Finally, FreePress instructs us yet again to tell the FCC to crack down on corporate advertisements disguised as "news." The reason we're starting to sound like a broken record about this matter is that the FCC is moving a bit slowly in protecting the public from corporate lies. ExxonMobil lobbyists recently helped produce a "news" segment claiming that global warming and hurricanes were completely unrelated developments, but the Mississippi station that aired it didn't disclose the sources of the segment. And media outlets wonder why they get no respect.

penny rants for the day of November 19, 2006: "you're entitled to your math, and I'm entitled to the math."

Why didn't Karl Rove see this electoral deluge coming? Why was he "surprised" that Republican corruption -- which we can perhaps more easily describe as "hypocrisy" than "bribery" -- resonated with voters? Because Karl Rove is the most cynical man in America. When Rove looks at voters, he sees people who, like him, think the fact that corruption is everywhere sorta makes it OK, or he sees people who, like him, wink at corruption if it helps their side -- or, he sees "wackos" who can be led to the polls like lemmings to a cliff regardless of how corrupt Republicans are. Of course Karl Rove didn't anticipate that corruption would be an issue with voters! Karl Rove himself is corrupt to the marrow, a "master" at winning elections with whisper campaigns and hate-stoking and fearmongering. It's hard out there for a pimp.

Right-wingers have no business implying the 2006 results aren't "historic" by cherry-picking the evidence (as Karl Rove, perhaps not coincidentally, does in the above-linked Time article). Right-wingers downplay the Democratic victory by comparing Democratic House gains to previous House gains in the sixth year of a two-term President. But of the pundits I've read, only Charles Krauthammer conceded that the advance of scientific gerrymandering might have tempered the possibility of the wild results you saw, say, in 1938 and 1974. Thus, using this handy House-made guide, I've compared the 2006 House gain with House gains since 1986, when gerrymandering seemed to stabilize House races. As you can see, House gains were between 2 and 9 seats in every two-year election cycle between 1986 and 2006, save for two. You can guess which two. Ann Coulter should be excited, I suppose, that her exception to the rule (1994) is bigger than the liberals' exception to the rule (2006) -- though voters were, for some reason, willing to put up with Democratic corruption for around 40 years, versus only 12 for Republicans, and, right, during most of those 40 years Democrats didn't enjoy the built-in advantage of scientific gerrymandering.

The Chicago Tribune did a human interest piece on the Democrats' Architekkkt, Rahm Emanuel, but his architecture, so to speak, isn't that impressive -- as John Walsh points out, only 9 of 22 Emanuel recruits won Congressional seats (and therefore only 9 of 29 incoming Democrats who beat Republicans are Emanuel recruits). The incorrigible Alexander Cockburn and the less incorrigible Jeffrey St. Clair make the same point by focusing on Tammy Duckworth's failure in Henry Hyde's district (though they mis-state the case by claiming Christine Cegelis "almost took down" Hyde in 2004) and Emanuel reject Jerry McNerney's resounding victory in Richard Pombo's district as cases in point. Read their work and you'll start thinking that being a liberal actually wins votes, while being a "moderate" turns voters off. Unless, of course, you're already thinking that, like me.

Both Mr. Bush and Ms. Pelosi have spoken in recent days about the need for "bipartisanship." Two words: hell no! Our patriotic duty as citizens is not to "compromise" with a party that's little better than France's National Front at this point. Think that's mean? The Republicans have branded themselves as the party of bigots, the party of nativists, the party of warmongers, the party of corporate greedheads, and the party of religious nutjobs, and I don't see a whole lot of daylight between the brand and the truth. If conservatives actually believe in conserving traditional values like hard work and initiative (no, not reactionary values like denying gays and women equal rights) and avoiding hifalutin solutions that make problems worse, like their ideological forefather Russell Kirk did, then conservatives need to take their party back, or start a new one, or become Libertarians. But, though incoming Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is right to suggest that a 49-seat minority in the Senate is still quite formidable, good Americans must not become Republican enablers through a misguided devotion to "bipartisanship" or "peace." If you reach out without standing your ground, you'll fall on your face. And then the Republicans will kick you in the teeth.

start cranking again.

Some right-wingers are no doubt consoling themselves that, with Democrats taking both Houses of Congress, they'll never have to hear about computerized voting machines losing your vote ever again. Well, surprise, pimps! Common Cause still provides a letter-to-your-Senator tool, with which you may express your desire for voter-verified paper records and random audits of electronic machines. Apparently the paperless voting machines in FL-13 (that's right, Katherine Harris's old district) lost over 18,000 votes in an election decided by fewer than 400 votes. That district also voted overwhelmingly for, you guessed it, voter-verified paper trails. But since voting is a right every American citizen theoretically enjoys, we ought to make paper trails legal at the federal level. Something tells me a few of these newbies will be quite receptive to the idea.

I hope soon to discourse at some length about the following topics: a) the Democrats who are coming in to the House and Senate ain't "conservative" or "centrist" just because the media says so; b) right-wing smarty-pantses who compare the 28-seat gain in the House to sixth-year second-term midterm elections from before the era of Extreme Gerrymandering are must cherry-picking the evidence; c) Rahm Emanuel ain't no kingmaker; and d) bipartisanship schmipartisanship. Maybe Sunday. Maybe not, because Bob Dylan is coming to town. But maybe so.

the Northeast shall rise again! (and let Tha Architekkkt rest in the deep grave.)

From the "all politics is local and all localities are national" department: of the 28 House seats that have changed hands from Republican to Democratic so far, a little over a third (ten) were in the Northeast. It'll be tough for the Republicans to recover those seats, certainly as long as they insist on being the party of greedheads and religious bigots, and Republicans could lose fellows like Chris Shays and Jim Gerlach next time around (plus Rob Simmons, if they haven't already). Two seats changed hands in Arizona, which is becoming (among other things) Florida West for elderly Northeasterners. Two seats changed hands in Iowa, which (unlike Illinois and Texas) has drawn districts so that they're competitive, imagine that. One each changed hands in Colorado and Minnesota, which have never struck me as places that ought to be particularly red. Two changed hands in Florida and one of those was Mark Foley's. One changed hands in California and that'll teach Richard Pombo to try to gut the Endangered Species Act. One changed hands in North Carolina and let's Heath Shuler and I make a deal, OK, in which he can be as pro-life and pro-gun as he wants but he fully explains what his opposition to illegal immigration has to do with an economic policy that helps the little guy? Three changed hands in Indiana and one in Wisconsin and I must confess I don't really understand why. One changed hands in Texas due to Tom DeLay's Law and one changed hands in Ohio due to Bob Ney's Law; I guess the one that changed hands in Kentucky and was due to Anne Northrup's Law. One changed hands in Kansas -- that's right, the state that stars in Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas? -- and, yikes, does that make Jim Ryun the worst House Rep ever?

Mr. Bush can, I suppose, content himself with never having to listen to the Northeast again -- and we can content ourselves with the notion that his kind do poorly in areas with lots of, you know, people in them, like, you know, most of the Northeast, and, like, you know, cities everywhere else. If the Democrats choose to accept this mission, they can build a lasting majority by (as Thomas Schaller suggests here) sealing up the Northeast and then picking off the rest of the country. And, over in the Senate, Bob Casey the Younger and Jim Webb and Jon Tester have taught Democrats how to win in the rest of the country -- i.e., be big-tent on abortion and/or gun control, but without pandering to the worst in Americans like Harold Ford the Younger did.

But regardless of who controls Congress, our work as citizens is the same -- we agitate for what we believe in, and our Representatives either follow suit or earn boatloads of bad karma that will hopefully one day result in, for example, an 18-point loss in a run at a third Senate term. Perhaps it'll be easier with Democrats in charge, or perhaps the organizations that supply me with action alerts will get complacent all at once. I don't really think they will -- it's hard to imagine the ACLU sitting back on warrantless wiretapping, or the EFF taking a breather on network neutrality. And Congress comes back soon to finish its work for the year, and since a bunch of these goofs aren't coming back, they might try to do as much damage as they can. But if good folks do get complacent, I'll just have to work harder. Whatever the fates ask of me, I'll do. But what's coming is certainly not a vacation from our duties.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't take take the time to celebrate the following truisms:

All that fearmongering the last two months failed to expand the Republican majority.

All that yelling and screaming about illegal immigration failed to expand the Republican majority.

All those gay marriage votes and flag-burning votes and Estate Tax votes in Congress failed to expand the Republican majority.

All those right-wing knuckleheads on the radio and on TV now have to attack the will of the people directly, instead of using the Democrats as their surrogates.

George Allen sure is Mr. Smooth, isn't he? But his career was ended by a real white man.

Karl Rove will never, ever, ever again be mistaken for a genius. I know, I know, you, too, were thinking "Mozart, Einstein, Rove." This guy ain't even Bismarck, yet the so-called "liberal media" couldn't get enough of him in 2002 and 2004. And what did he do that was so great in 2002 and 2004? He lied his posterior off and pandered to the most emotionally-crippled members of society. This takes genius? Genius requires, at the very least, utility to a community, or an understanding of people's lives as if they're not pawns on your great chessboard. Mr. Rove has never shown me any reason to believe that he understands either one. I'll be more than happy to pray for his redemption. Hey, it happens to the unlikeliest people. But I wouldn't lay money on it.

before you vote tomorrow.

Common Cause's voting helpline/hotline is 1-866-MY-VOTE-1; TrueMajority's voting helpline/hotline is 1-866-OUR-VOTE. Other nonpartisan groups also sponsor each of these lines. Any problems at all, call them. And there will be problems. Republicans already beat us up with the fear stick; if that doesn't work, what's left but intimidation and "incompetence"?

TrueMajority also has a three-prong "Election Preparedness Kit," whereas American Rights at Work provides a downloadable handout with which you can protect your voting rights, and another one which provides a list of voting violations to look out for while you're voting.

Step five of the first American Rights handout suggests something I didn't think of: if the polling place doubts your right to vote there, and offers a provisional ballot, you can try offering more ID in an effort to cast a regular ballot. A provisional ballot is better than nothing, but you shouldn't have to settle for that if you know you're in the right place.

Good luck and God bless.

have some more of that do-goody good bulldada.

Sometime after the election, I wonder if I'll be reading something like this:

"Despite his low ratings in the polls, President (sic) Bush had a positive effect on every race he visited in the waning days of the campaign. How can this be? 'I suspect polls simply aren't an accurate indicator of the President's (sic) popularity, or anything else, for that matter,' said Sean O'Evil, fellow at the Justice League. 'This President (sic) is a fighter, and he seems to confound the expectations of the liberal media time and time again..."

I bet I could read something like that in a hundred newspaper reports and never find someone willing to come out and tell us the real reason Mr. Bush might save some Republican backside:

Money.

Who's Mr. Bush still popular with? Why, his "base," of course, the richest people in the country, who are doing quite well under Mr. Bush, thank you very much, and who are thus more than happy to help out Conrad "Frank" Burns or Jim Talent (though probably not George Allen or Rick Santorum, since everyone knows by now that they're clowns) by paying a lot of money to hear Mr. Bush speak (sic). And Republicans can then spend that money for TV ads that lie about their opponents, or for better ground operations that turn out more voters -- or both.

Money is both the elephant and the elephant dung in every room that discusses politics.

And in the interest of full disclosure, let me state that, though I support public campaign-financing, I also live in a world that doesn't, so I've given a hundred bucks to each of the following individuals: former independent Presidential candidate Ralph Nader; Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV); U.S. Rep. and U.S. Senate candidate Sherrod Brown (D-OH); State Senator and U.S. Senate candidate Jon Tester (D-MT); former Navy Secretary and U.S. Senate candidate Jim Webb (D-VA); and U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX). I'm not going to brook any silliness about how there's only one Republican on that list. You want the cash? Have integrity and do good works. Mr. Paul doesn't seem to have any problem understanding that.

the river of no return.

Democrats may pick up a lot of seats in Congress in less than a week and then again they may not. If they do, though, it's not exactly cause to celebrate, because American politicians in general are moving right. As a people, Americans aren't moving right, not at all. Where is the widespread enthusiasm for this amazing tax-cut-bred economy, for example? Where are the marchers in the streets denouncing the "unfairness" of the "death tax"? If you answered "nonexistent" and "nonexistent," you see my point. But the most right-wing Americans nonetheless seem to be the most motivated group at the polls. And the Democrats don't have unions to bring out the vote anymore, so now they have to chase corporate money just like Republicans do. You see the problem, of course: in this climate it's easy to scare the most right-wing Americans -- many of whom are just as suspicious of, and angry about, corporate power as I am -- into electing pro-corporate right-wing big-strutters in a game of bait and switch.

Democrats spend too much time and money chasing that vote, instead of motivating the multitudes of voters who usually stay home. People who stay home on Election Day are not evil, and getting them to come out is not a matter of pretending you like NASCAR. Democrats may get 90% of the black vote, for example, but plenty of black folks stay home because they think the Democrats take them for granted. Plenty of other folks don't vote Democrat because they (justifiably) automatically link Democrats with gun control, and they might vote Democrat otherwise. If between 20 and 30 seats switch sides this year, you're not going to have 20 to 30 more liberals in the House. You'll have more folks like Ken Lucas, Jack Davis, and Heath Shuler than you'll have folks like Tony Trupiano, James Wright, and Jeeni Criscenzo. In contrast, when the Republicans stormed back in 1994, you didn't have a lot of moderates taking over those seats; you had a lot of Lindsey Grahams. The Senate might actually take a more leftward lurch than the House, if Bob Casey, Jon Tester, Jim Webb, and Sherrod Brown all win. But are any of these fellows Frank Church? I doubt it.

The job of being Frank Church will fall on the people, as usual. I'm not so nuts that I'll say I relish the challenge -- that's a boast people who watch too much ESPN make. But as an American, I won't refuse it.