Thieves in the Temple.

in which a false and simple man too easily finds "false simplicity" in others.

"Raising the minimum wage without providing relief for the small businesses that must pay for that increase is simply not an option," Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY) said as the Senate voted to close debate on a minimum wage bill with tax breaks. "In the long run, we simply cannot claim to be helping workers while at the same time we hurt the businesses that employ them." Right-wingers are bold thinkers when it comes to foreign policy ("lets spread democracy around the world!") but hopeless scaredy-cats when it comes to economics ("how will businesses ever make payrolls if we raise the minimum wage?"), and Mr. Enzi goes on to assail the "false simplicity" of myself and others in wanting a "clean" bill. Well, I think raising the minimum wage is a damn simple issue, morally, and as so often happens, the moral thing to do is also good for business. Why hasn't it occurred to Mr. Enzi that higher-paid workers are happier workers, and happier workers are more productive workers, and more productive workers bring in more money for the company? Wait, wait, I know: right-wingers do the bidding of big corporations, and corporations regard any wages as an impediment to profits. What reactionary thinking.

In this spirit, the Quakers still have that toll-free number, 1.800.459.1887, with which you can tell your Senator you want a clean minimum wage bill, with no tax breaks for businesses. You may want to mention that "allowing the Senate to work its will," for which Mr. Enzi argues, is rather beside the point if the Senate represents the people.

UPDATE. Decided that "backward, reactionary thinking" was redundant, not to mention repetitive, not to mention it said the same thing twice. Now fixed. Also fixed: "smiple," as I do not know what "raising the minimum wage is a damn smiple issue" means.

another friendly reminder.

A Newsweek poll, reported January 27, put Mr. Bush's approval rating at a mere 30%. Also, 63% of respondents said Congress wasn't challenging Mr. Bush's war plan with enough vigor. But that's not the most interesting finding. The most interesting finding is this one: 58% of respondents "say they wish the Bush presidency were simply over."

Hey, 58%: want to get your wish? Just three steps: impeach, convict, remove.

good morning.

Remember, kids:

Impeach, convict, remove.

son of "appeasement."

I'd suspected that replacing Don Rumsfeld would make things no better, and now I know. New Secretary of Defense not-Don Rumsfeld said yesterday that the non-binding, non-legislating resolution condemning Mr. Bush's troop build-up in Iraq "emboldens the enemy." "Any indication of flagging will in the United States gives encouragement to these folks," he said. So what, exactly, has changed about Tha Bush Mobb since the "thrashing" they received at the polls this past November? Nothing but the semantics. Mr. Rumsfeld, you may recall, suggested back in Stupidity September that folks like myself who disagreed with Mr. Bush's plan in Iraq were "appeasers." Tha Bush Mobb doesn't use the word "appeasers" anymore, but still they insist: stand with Us, or you're giving aid and comfort to Them -- not that you mean to, of course. Those who disagree with Mr. Bush, a number now roughly equal to the number of sentient beings in the United States, are still little more than traitors to Tha Bush Mobb.

Mr. Bush himself lent no aid and comfort to his own cause by suggesting that if you don't like his plan, you "have an obligation and a serious responsibility" to put up a better one. What hubris! From losing the surplus to failing to prevent 9.11 to strong-arming the PATRIOT Act to botching an unnecessary, expensive war to spying on Americans without warrants to letting New Orleans drown, Tha Bush Mobb foists disaster after disaster on the American people, and they still have the cojones to say you don't like it? You do better. A deaf, dumb, and blind infant could do better at being President than Mr. Bush. Presumably an arsonist could use Bush Mobb reasoning: "Yeah, I burned down your house. If you don't like it, come up with a better idea."

Well, I've got hundreds of better ideas. Most of them don't originate with me, and you've been reading them in this forum for almost two years now. Right now, though, I'll put up only three better ideas: impeach, convict, and remove. All of them. They don't know how not to hurt America, and they don't care to learn. What does Tha Bush Mobb have to do or say to bring upon themselves the punishment they deserve?

spare the rod, spoil Tha Bush Mobb.

The Senate now plans to take up a minimum wage increase that excludes certain types of workers, like farmworkers, and includes tax breaks. What part of "no more damn handouts for the wealthy" does the Senate not get? Of course, we the people are not obliged to consider such a bill; we are only obliged to tell our Senators, again, to pass a clean minimum wage increase, unencumbered by any sort of big business candy. Put it to most people and they'd want the Senate to cut the crap already.

The Electronic Freedom Foundation, which is a plaintiff in a wiretapping case against AT&T, encourages us to demand Congressional investigations into Mr. Bush's warrantless wiretapping program using this handy email-writing tool. I am not appeased by Tha Bush Mobb's announcement last week that maybe there ought to be some judicial review to all this wiretapping after all, and neither should you be.

Shock of shocks! The FCC plans to let payola offenders off with only a slap on the wrist, though FCC Chair Kevin Martin might call planned penalties against Clear Channel and CBS Radio (among others) "taking one for the team." You can encourage the FCC to be a little more stalwart against payola (or, for you non-Chuck D fans, the practice of paying radio stations to play certain songs more than other songs) with this email-writing tool. Ever wonder why some songs are hits? Now you know.

Finally, USPIRG has written a letter to the Senate Finance Committee urging them to pass the House's Medicare drug bill, which also permits Medicare to purchase drugs in bulk, and you can sign onto this letter if you like. I'm sure the Senate will play the same games with the Medicare bill that they're playing with the minimum wage bill, all in the name of "getting along" and "reaching across the aisle." If anyone tries to "reach across the aisle" to Republicans, I want it to be because they're trying to slap them upside the head.

when I was born for the seventh time.

Republicans in the Senate filibustered the "clean" minimum wage bill yesterday. One more time: Republicans in the Senate filibustered the "clean" minimum wage bill yesterday. They hate us. It's as damn simple as that. And Max Baucus (D-MT) tried to include tax breaks in the minimum wage bill before it went out for a vote. How many times must I tell these pimps! You do not start negotiations with what you'll settle for. Especially with the National Front party, which will squeal about "bipartisanship" and then kick you in the teeth every time you "reach out" to them. Another case in point: David Vitter (R-LA) offered an amendment to the minimum wage bill that would, reports OMB Watch, give a free pass to businesses that fail to submit important information fulfilling environmental and workplace safety requirements. I guess Vitter's logic is a) the minimum wage hurts businesses, and b) regulation hurts businesses, so c) relaxing one would mitigate the other. By my count, Vitter is 0-for-2 on his premises, which doesn't bode well for his conclusion. The Senate switchboard number is 202.224.3121. (This email-writing tool would shoot off a letter to your Senator asking them to pass a clean minimum wage bill. The Republicans put a stop to that yesterday. But you may want to send it anyway, first altering the outgoing message to reflect yesterday's bad news.)

Faced with a health care crisis, Mr. Bush responds the only way he knows how: by offering tax breaks to people who buy their own health insurance, while taxing folks who get pretty good health insurance through their employer. Sounds like another giveaway to HMOs to me. Sounds like a way of penalizing companies that actually give good health care to me. It'll be DOA in the new Congress, but DOA ain't enough: we're all about solutions, too. Contact your Reps and Senators and demand universal health care coverage, using the tools in the upper left-hand corner of this page. Which some two-thirds of Americans support. Which would be more fiscally responsible than the current system, since the current system is weighed down by folks getting charity care in emergency rooms when they could be, you know, seeing a primary care physician and spending less money. This quickie report from the Center for American Progress may help you organize your thoughts.

In other news, Senator Jim Webb of Virginia delivered the Democratic Party response to some speech or other someone gave the other night; it's worth a look. Rumor has it the Democrats gave him a speech to read, and then he tore it up and wrote his own. I'm inclined to believe that -- I presume the Democrats don't regularly instruct their members to remind voters that the gap between CEO earnings and worker earnings has dramatically widened over the years.

more slowly than the wheels of God.

The Senate considers increasing the minimum wage this week; the relevant bill is S. 2. The relevant phone number is still 1.800.459.1887, and the relevant statement is "vote for S. 2 to increase the minimum wage, and oppose all amendments, including tax breaks." Or anti-worker regulations, or the dread line-item veto (the Founders gave the veto all the subtlety of a sledgehammer for a good reason, you know). We know the Senate regards itself as the grown-up law-making body in Congress, dedicated to taming the silliness of the lower House, and we also know that such haughtiness helped prevent Tom DeLay's House from doing more damage last term. But we are not a nation of spectators, and we are under no obligation to negotiate with our representatives, no matter which house they serve in.

Congress may have changed hands, but that doesn't mean the big corporations have lost their iron grip. Senator Feinstein has re-introduced the PERFORM Act, which would force satellite, digital and internet radio stations to adopt digital rights management (DRM) restrictions -- such as a restriction on choosing a song you've recorded off one of these radio stations by title, artist, or genre -- or lose their statutory licenses. You, the user, also won't be able to move your recordings to different computers or portable music players. It's like the record companies want us to go back to the old days before tape recorders. It's like they know they're dinosaurs who can't adapt to a changing reality. The relevant action page is here.

Oh, and United for Peace and Justice is marching in Washington, D.C. this weekend. The main march is Saturday; marchers will assemble at the National Mall between 3rd and 7th Streets at around 1l am, and the march will begin at 1 pm. But UFPJ has planned other events as well; read about them here.

penny rants for the day of January 21, 2007: unspeakable wrath of the italics hammer!

The House's vaunted Medicare-bargaining bill has been the subject of many action alerts here, but apparently the bill forbids the HHS Secretary from narrowing the number of drugs Medicare can cover (as the Veterans Administration does), which supposedly robs said Secretary of much of his/her bargaining power with HMOs. I was going to say, it's almost like they planned it that way -- passing a populist bill that doesn't actually cut into CEO largesse. But then I thought to ask: if it really doesn't make a difference whether the Secretary can negotiate drug prices or not, why were Republicans so adamant about tying the Secretary's hands in the first place? And then I thought that while the Secretary may not be able to establish a formulary per se, the Secretary has some ability to allocate funds within the department, and Congress certainly has some ability to allocate funds to Medicare, and so the Secretary can cite certain political realities in negotiating better drug prices. That would put drug companies in the position of denying their drugs to the seniors who need them if they're not happy with the negotiations -- which I'm sure a few will do, but not many. Still, the comparison with the VA certainly doesn't hold. And it would probably be better for Medicare if they closed a loophole that makes brand-name drugs free for seniors once the manufacturer ponies up the co-pay (because, while that brand-name drug would be free for seniors, it would cost Medicare a bundle).

Yet another right-winger whines about her free speech rights being violated, because someone posted examples of her hateful rhetoric on his blog, and then alerted her advertisers. Boo hoo. Melanie Morgan is yet another right-winger who needs to read the damn First Amendment: it protects you from the government, not from your own advertisers, and if I decide to mobilize your advertisers against you, that's my damn free speech. Put another way, the First Amendment guarantees you the right to speak out against the government and to redress grievances with the government, but it does not guarantee you the right to make a living off your speech. If your advertisers bail out on you, you're not being oppressed -- you're being given a clue that it's time to find another line of work. At least Ms. Morgan refrained (as far as I know) from calling Spocko a "terrorist," because that's where it's going -- any of us who stand up for a damn thing that offends some whiny corporation are going to be "terrorists" in the future. But I've explained all of this before. And I'm getting damn tired of right-wingers not listening.

Has Congressman Freedom Fries really written a bill that forbids Mr. Bush from invading Iran? Not so fast. The bill forbids Mr. Bush from attacking Iran without Congressional approval "(a)bsent a national emergency created by attack by Iran, or a demonstrably imminent attack by Iran." Who declares a state of "national emergency"? And who has already set the bar so low for "proof" that any scrap of proof about Iran's nuclear ambitions will seem like a suitcase full of proof compared to that skimpy rationale for invading Iraq? Republican Rep. Ron Paul, America's next President, is a co-sponsor of this bill, but he also speaks of the possibility that Mr. Bush will fake/provoke a Gulf of Tonkin-type incident in the Persian Gulf, which, coincidentally, is where the carriers Eisenhower and Stennis are currently parked. Mr. Jones's bill sounds a little like that McCain/Warner anti-torture bill from 2005, which gives Mr. Bush the right to torture if he suddenly finds himself in an episode of 24.

It is with great sadness that I must report that Hugo Chavez has gone off the deep end. Rule by Presidential decree for the next year and a half, when your party is in the majority in the legislature? Even in Bizarro World America we ain't quite there yet, though not for Mr. Bush's lack of trying. I can't even credit Mr. Chavez's impatience with getting the corporations off the backs of Venezuelans -- "rule by decree" (which I keep typing "rue by decree," oddly enough) begins an irreversible corruption of the spirit, and fourth and fifth terms for Mr. Chavez will undoubtedly finish the job. Getting corporations off your back ain't worth doing if you don't do it the right way, and now Mr. Chavez ain't doing it the right way. However, don't take this statement as an endorsement of unilateral American involvement in Venezuela, because of some vague "alliance" with some vague "international terrorist movement."

Never let it be said that Sean Hannity doesn't have his finger in the wind: his "Enemy of the State" segment on his new weekly show, Jump Up! Up! Up! Up! Hannity Boy Jump!, lasted one week. However, he's replaced it with the "Enemy of the Week" segment (wow! You can literally be the enemy of seven entire calendar days?). And it's still basically the same criteria: "a person whose behavior threatens the very fabric of this country." So this "person" is still essentially "an enemy of the state," in that his or her behavior "threatens the very fabric of this country," but he's just not calling it that -- much as, last week, Sean Penn had "the right to say what he wants" though he was an "enemy of the state," requiring immediate neutralization before he exercises that right further and causes more irreversible damage? Thanks, Sean, that makes everything better. I guess I'd be more upset if Sean's first two enemies of the week or the state or whatever weren't stars of junk news.

in which George W. Bush still hates everyone not named George W. Bush.

Don't believe the hype about Mr. Bush's alleged "about-face" on his warrantless wiretapping program: as numerous print media have pointed out, Mr. Gonzalez has been cagey about exactly what Tha Bush Mobb has conceded to the FISA court and what the FISA court might have conceded to Tha Bush Mobb. Dave Lindorff, meanwhile, suggests a reason for a possible "about-face" -- Mr. Bush hopes Congress will let bygones be bygones and not investigate the warrantless wiretapping program as it's operated since 2001. That's as good a cue as any to demand a Congressional investigation into the warrantless-wiretapping program. The folks you'd like to write to are Mr. John Conyers, Judiciary Chair of the House, and Mr. Patrick Leahy, Senate Judiciary Chair, and you can find them using the "find Congressional Committee members" link in the top-left corner.

Mr. Bush continues his war on legislative power in a series of amendments to an Executive Order which aims to concentrate federal regulatory power in the executive branch, rather than the legislative branch, where it obviously belongs. He's mandated that the criteria for creating regulations shift from identifying public health or environmental problems to the identification of "market failures," which means what it sounds like and which also sounds like a way to give the federal government many times more work than it currently has (or needs). And he's mandated that certain paperwork review processes become more cumbersome and that political appointments have more law-making power than Congress. The Constitution is not that tough a read, and the Executive has no power to force regulations to fit his narrow concept of what a "problem" is (which appears to be limited to some crony corporation not making enough money). Read more about this revolting development here, though I'll warn you it's a lot of information, and remember that you can still get your Reps' contact information using the tools in the top-left corner.

penny rants for the day of January 13, 2007.

The hell with these so-called "real conservatives" in the 2008 Presidential race -- Sam Brownback and Newt Gingrich are real reactionaries, not real conservatives, and Jim Gilmore thoroughly screwed up Virginia's fiscal health before leaving office in 2001. No, the first real conservative has apparently entered the race, and he is the honorable Republican Representative Ron Paul of Texas's Fightin' 14th District. I may not be able to vote for the guy, being as I'm an unregenerate tax-and-spend liberal and all, but I'll certainly do what I can to get him nominated. After all, the nation does not need more "debate" between right-wing shoutmeisters and liberal wimps; it needs a real dialogue between real conservatives and real liberals, for only then will we have real solutions. Get Ron Paul or Chuck Hagel in there (or both!) and we'll have half of that dialogue. (Without Russ Feingold in the race, though, I don't see who'll vigorously uphold the other half of that debate. No, Dennis Kucinich votaries, I said "vigorously.")

A couple of readings from the Council for a Livable World: Peter Galbraith, Senior Diplomatic Fellow of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, suggests that Iraq's unique and fundamental political problems will by themselves render an escalation inadequate. Lt. Gen. Robert G. Gard, Jr., Senior Military Fellow also at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, says that as insurgents leave Baghdad, they'll concentrate elsewhere in Iraq, leading to a perverse game of "whack-a-mole" in Iraq's outlying provinces. "Chaos will continue unless the international community lends a hand," Gard says. Jim Webb said that, too, and won himself a Senate seat.

Finally, I understand that Mr. Hannity, on his new Pravda TV show, Super Extra Hannity Fun Time Go!, will designate an "Enemy of the State" every week. Apparently, in order to receive this designation, you don't have to, you know, kill a lot of people in an illegal and immoral war or ruin a lot of lives with your fake stock schemes; all you have to do is a) call Hannity a bad name and b) call the Administration names in addition to calling for their impeachment -- all while Hannity invokes your alienable right to free speech. Oh, wait, I get it now: it's a joke, because when he refers to people he doesn't like as "enemies of the state," he doesn't really mean it. And that's the joke, you know, because any conceptual incongruity (I'm not even going to call it "irony") qualifies as a "joke" in these times. Memo to Mr. Hannity: boys hide behind jokes. Men take responsibility for what they say.

"if cows don't eat it, I don't play on it."

I hate to say it, but I don't think Congress has the Constitutional right to defund Mr. Bush's planned troop escalation, at least not as S. 233 and H.R. 353 are written. I think that, once Congress gives the President (sic) the authority to wage war, they have to let him do that as he sees fit, no matter how badly he does it, unless and until they're willing to end the war. I've harped plenty on Mr. Bush's ignorance of the Constitution's conception of the executive branch, and I certainly don't want to take shortcuts now just to stop him. Here are some better ways, I think, to stop the troop escalation: a) pass a resolution ending the Iraq war, and b) force Congress to rescind the original 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force and then pass a new authorization that reaffirms that the legislative branch declares the wars and forbids Mr. Bush from wiretapping without warrants, opening your mail, creating a national database of your shopping habits, and the like. It's a shame that Congress would have to pass a law telling Mr. Bush to follow the damn Constitution, which is as far as I know still available in any number of libraries or on one of the "internets" if he needs to brush up, but that's the way things are right now. (And, right, Senators Church and Cooper wrote that amendment in 1970 stopping the funding of Nixon's bombing raids in Cambodia, but I don't think Congress gave Nixon the authority to bomb Cambodia in the first place.)

A grassroots lobbying provision in S. 1 might be in danger of getting stripped out from the bill, thanks to some, er, inaccurate information coming from the right wing. The provision in question would require disclosure of grassroots lobbying for groups already registered under the Lobby Disclosure Act. The Lobby Disclosure Act requires registration of groups who lobby the federal government directly, or who spend over $25,000 in a three-month period on lobbying campaigns. The provision, then, won't silence small groups as some right-wingers are no doubt claiming -- the provision requires disclosure, not restriction, of groups that are already registered. Small groups aren't likely to be registered, and larger groups, as described above, are more likely to be "Astroturf" groups. And as to whether the provision "hinders free speech": more likely it "hinders large bribes." The relevant action page is here, and you can read a more thorough Office of Management and Budgeting Analysis here.

For some reason, the federal government is subjecting the Family and Medical Leave Act to a review. And when I say "for some reason," understand that I mean "because they want to get rid of it." Being a worker bee, I know some people abuse the Family and Medical Leave Act, since the Act doesn't (and shouldn't) require workers to state the nature of some emergencies, and those people ought to be ashamed of themselves. But I also know many people who can't do without it -- can't take a morning off if a child suddenly becomes ill, can't take care of sick loved ones on a regular basis, can't take time off to resolve their own chronic medical conditions -- and I'm certainly willing to shame the stragglers in order to preserve the only piece of progressive legislation Mr. Clinton ever passed. The Department of Labor is taking comments until February 2; here's where you leave your comment. You better believe your supervisor will be leaving comments -- though your CEO probably won't, since leave under FMLA is unpaid.

Finally, here's one more page from Consumer Union, in which you can support Medicare negotiating its own drug prices and repealing oil company tax breaks in one fell swoop. If you haven't done so already, of course.

readings for the day of January 11, 2007.

It isn't just Mr. Bush who wouldn't dare ask the rich to pay for the war from which they reap so many benefits: John McCain, who has in the past found Mr. Bush's tax cuts so reckless that he's actually voted against them, now feels the same way. Dick Polman recounts the long history of the relationship between going to war and taxing the rich.

Meanwhile, George Will says "let the market decide" on a minimum wage, but Seth Sandronsky reveals how Mr. Will doesn't have to worry about "letting the market decide" what he gets paid, since NAFTA specifically protects some highly-paid workers, like syndicated journalists, from reaping the benefits of having their work outsourced. Every time a conservative or a right-wing reactionary says "let the market decide," he's lying -- he probably doesn't have the corporate welfare fight in him, and certainly doesn't want his own job filled by a worker who'll do it for less.

Chuck says: go ask Alice.

The House will likely vote on a minimum wage increase today; that American Friends Service Committee number is 1.800.459.1887. H.R. 2 is the bill that would increase the minimum wage; it would not, ideally, include any amendments like, say, an amendment eviscerating the Estate Tax, or an amendment permitting Republicans to murder nuns and orphans with immunity from prosecution. Naturally, a $7.25 minimum wage would not be enough to live on -- and, believe me, I've done the math -- but it's a lot better than the current $5.15. This fight will continue after the bill is passed.

Generals Abizaid and Casey said a troop "surge" "would not add considerably" to Mr. Bush's chances for military success in Iraq. Colin Powell thinks the Army is "about broken." According to Bob Novak, perhaps a dozen Republican Senators support a troop surge, and Chuck Hagel compares the idea to that famous Lewis Carroll novel with the white rabbit in it. No more than a third of the American public supports a "surge" in any polls, and most polls put the figure rather lower. But what do we all know? All indications are that Mr. Bush plans to go full steam ahead with his plans to add 20,000 to 30,000 more troops on the ground, and he'll accomplish this end mostly by extending tours of duty for soldiers and reservists who must be going out of their minds by now. I gave you the Council for a Livable World's petition the other day; if you missed that one, MoveOn has their own petition demanding that Mr. Bush please refrain from feeding more American soldiers into the Boschian blender that Iraq has become.

If Mr. Bush's address tonight goes as expected, then there'll be mass demonstrations all over the country tomorrow. Courtesy of United for Peace and Justice, Win Without War, and TrueMajority, here's where to find an event in your vicinity (or here, if the first link doesn't work). Oh, and by the way, that probably won't be the biggest anti-war protest this month -- the weekend of January 27 to 29 will see a massive mobilization in Washington, D.C. More news as it arrives.

waving my arms in the air.

The House may vote on H.R. 2, the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007, on Wednesday, and here are a few ways to help you express yourself. American Rights at Work provides an email-writing tool; MoveOn provides a letter-to-the-editor tool; Unionvoice provides a toll-free number with which to call your Reps at 1.866.338.1015; and the American Friends Service Committee provides a toll-free number at 1.800.459.1887. You may want to let your Reps know that you want H.R. 2 to be a clean increase, that H.R. 2 should not have any poison pill amendments attached, because the Party of Hate is pretty good at that. Mr. Bush has already said he wants business tax breaks to be attached to any minimum wage increase. I'm not necessarily against any business tax break that comes down the pike, but really now, why does what Bush thinks matter? He's one guy. Some four-fifths of all Americans support a minimum wage increase, without conditions. Florida passed a massive minimum wage increase in 2004, the same year they overwhelmingly went for Mr. Bush. Maybe the politicians don't get it. So tell them: do not compromise with the President (sic). Only compromise with the people.

Speaking of Mr. Bush, he plans to give another speech this week describing another putative Strategy for Victory in Iraq, and early reports indicate that this plan will include a troop escalation and a lot more benchmarks (though no penalties for failure to reach benchmarks, because using negative reinforcement to get better results wouldn't be, you know, conservative or anything). Meanwhile, Council for a Livable World provides a petition to bring them all home now. As I've said before, I've been against this war from the beginning, but if I thought we were doing any good by staying, I'd say stay. We're not, and that's not our troops' fault; it's the Commander-in-Chief's (sic) fault, for starting a war so he can funnel taxpayer money to his crony corporations and destroy the federal government through fiscal chaos at the same time. The new Democratic Congress has made some noises about sending no more troops there, but it hasn't said nearly enough about Iraq war spending being off-budget. They ought to.

As I've said before, a Pelosi-led House shouldn't be contemplating any more of these "religious freedom" bills that give far-right religious bigots more rights than normal people. But maybe you live in a district represented by a far-right panderer. If so, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State has provided a handy letter-to-your-Rep tool demanding that he (right, Virgil Goode?) or she (right, Marilyn Musgrave?) respect the separation of church and state that the establishment clause of the First Amendment does-so promote. Only by respecting the separation of church and state can every American enjoy the religious freedom which is the reason many of us came here.

dismantled king is off the throne/there's nothing left.

The new Congress starts work today, amid calls from both Mr. Bush and the "liberal" media to put aside partisanship, which is code for "let the National Front Party do what they like." Conservatives always have a place at America's dinner table, but right-wing reactionaries who've usurped the good name of conservatism don't. The people have no obligation to compromise with the party that's little better than the National Front party of France, even if its leader occupies the Oval Office, and Ms. Pelosi seems to have a similar idea, by pushing through the "100 Hours" initiatives with little debate or input from the National Front. Those windbags haven't earned the right to whine about not having a voice, since they've been stomping on the people's throats for years. Express your support for the 100 Hours initiatives here, if you like. No, they're not all I hope for from Congress, either, but it is progress. Then again, dead silence would be progress over yet another flag-burning amendment, yet another gay-hating "marriage protection" amendment, or yet another attempt to eviscerate the Estate Tax and lie about whom it's for. (Speaking of that Oval Office occupant: impeach the distinguished gentleman here.)

Meanwhile, AT&T execs agreed to adhere to network neutrality conditions -- you know, where they agree not tell you what web pages you can look at -- in their merger with BellSouth. It's a half-victory -- the merger really shouldn't go through under any circumstances -- but without the merciless pounding of the people about FCC Chair Kevin Martin's attempt to wheedle a "yes" vote out of Commissioner McDowell after he used his conscience and recused himself, it's unlikely AT&T would have made that concession. FreePress provides a page with which to tell your Congressfolk to make net neutrality the law of the land. Yeah, I know they've got a lot on their plate. But Hoyer and Reid are making everybody work, like, a real work week, so they have the time. (I'm not sure I want Congress actually working a full-time gig, though. It gives them time to do more damage.)

Finally, one item on Ms. Pelosi's "100 Hours" list merits special attention -- the elimination of tax breaks for oil companies. The Union of Concerned Scientists provides that page here, hot on the heels of their report documenting ExxonMobil's tactics in delaying action on global warming. Which they surely don't need corporate welfare to do. Right, George Will?