Thieves in the Temple.

readings for the day of May 31, 2007.

Buzzflash interviewed the world's last journalist, Greg Palast, on May 18, and the title of said interview -- "How Rove May Already Have Stolen the 2008 Election" -- won't warm your heart. Personally, I don't care if our next President is named Rudy Giuliani or John Edwards, but in time I hope the words "Karl Rove" and "genius" open up a hole in space-time whenever they're joined. At the risk of giving the ending away, the Rove plan for 2008 involves suppressing the black vote.

Andrew Sullivan reports that "enhanced interrogation techniques" is, guess what, a term straight from The Big Book of Cool Nazi Terms for Wannabe Dictators, and, moreover, that the specific "enhanced" techniques Messrs. Bush and Rumsfeld cite as being A-OK with them are, guess what, Nazi techniques. (Apparently, however, the Nazis rejected waterboarding as somehow uncivilized.) Mr. Sullivan goes to some length at the end to declare that Mr. Bush is not like Mr. Hitler, and of course he's right about that. For example, whereas Mr. Hitler's 1937 government was a one-party state in which corporations were subservient to the government, Mr. Bush's 2007 government is a two-party state in which the government is subservient to the corporations. Like Jesse Ventura used to say, a two-party state only beats a Communist state by one party.

(Hat tip to Virginia Metze for the second item.)

when I write the book/about my love.

The agricultural appropriations process is upon us, and, as you may have noticed, we've had a lot of food-related crises lately -- contaminated peanut butter, contaminated spinach, contaminated lettuce, contaminated cat food, contaminated dog food, contaminated hog and chicken feed. Perhaps not coincidentally, the last few Congresses have run a reaper's scythe through FDA food safety funding. But those Congressfolk probably don't care, as long as they keep their little fiefdoms. Harsh of me to say so? Maybe they could change my mind if they pushed a little more food-safety cash the FDA's way. I'm gonna tell 'em so, and you can, too.

The federal government stands ready to turn over a huge chunk of the public airwaves to private corporations! How can this happen? Well, the big networks are trying to go all-digital by 2009, and so they won't be using a lot of public channels anymore. But though these airwaves were always ours to give and theirs to use, the big telecoms are pressuring the FCC to auction these airwaves off to them, so they can sit on 'em and keep entrepreneurs from using 'em to make better and cheaper technologies. The big telecoms must think folks who would use the public airwaves to create widespread net-neutral high-speed wireless access, for example, are too damned irresponsible to do it right. All the lines they've been laying down over the last decade-plus must have nothing to do with it. Corporations, how great thou art! MoveOn has one petition, and FreePress has another; do the compare-and-contrast thing and see which one you like better. But remember, don't use both; that muddies the data.

Cindy Sheehan has "resigned" as the public face of the anti-war movement. She's not just sick of right-wing numskulls who attacked her as a radical and a potty-mouth and an "attention whore," though -- she's also sick of anti-war folk who attacked her when she castigated the Democrats for not being anti-war enough. Though I reject bitterness in any context, I'm not going to tell her what to feel. I am going to tell her "thank you," though, because she did a lot to make opposing the Iraq war the centrist position in American politics. Here's how you can, too.

true love travels a gravel road.

Might a Democratic Congress take care of America's farms better than the Republican Congress did? I wouldn't bet on it. But the Farm and Food Policy Project makes helpful suggestions as Congress takes up its annual Farm bill -- namely, that the next Farm bill should promote local, small farmers instead of big ones, should expand conservation and farmland protection programs, should increase fair access to government programs for disadvantaged farmers, and should promote the interests of poor families by helping farmers' markets and farm-to-school programs. Here's where to sign on.

The FDA's been taking a lot of heat lately for the drugs it's permitted to hit the market without proper warning of their side effects -- but they just did it again, by withholding information suggesting that GlaxoSmithKline's diabetes wonderdrug, Avandia, increases the risk of heart attacks by 30%. Oops. The Senate passed a watered-down drug safety bill last month, but the House takes up drug safety next, and we could encourage them to do a better job. And, in the meantime, we could, you know, eat better and get more exercise and reduce stress and if we do all these things we'll need these Frankendrugs a lot less when we're older.

Tomorrow, Mr. Bush comes to Edison, NJ to raise money for the Republican Party, and New Jersey Citizen Action (among others) plans to protest his very presence in our fair state from the parking lot next to the Holiday Inn on King George's Road. If you're local, go here for directions. NJ Citizen Action doesn't say exactly where Mr. Bush will be speaking -- I have a bad feeling he'll be at a location rather far from the Holiday Inn parking lot, because, you know, NJ Citizen Action won't take loyalty oaths to Mr. Bush. That just means you'll have to be louder.

submit!

The FDA extended its comment period on their alternative-medicine-busting "guidance," but only to this coming Tuesday, May 29. The "guidance" "interprets" the "law" to mean that anyone who takes or recommends an alternative health supplement could be "practicing medicine without a license." After all, Tha Bush Mobb knows better about everything than you and I do. How great thou art, Bush Mobb! If you haven't submitted your smackdown already, then do so via this site.

As you've no doubt heard, Congress passed a supplemental Iraq war spending bill yesterday that doesn't include hard withdrawal dates. That's because they're a bunch of damn idiots. Do they really imagine that Mr. Bush's most rage-addled supporters can be appeased by their capitulation? Don't they know that the answer to "you're putting our troops in harm's way" is "no, Mr. Bush put them in harm's way, and I'm getting them the hell out of harm's way"? Do they even talk to normal people at all? However. I note that the bill only funds the war through September, meaning Mr. Bush and his loyalists will have to go through all of this again later on this year, and, with Mr. Bush in charge, things probably won't be any better in Iraq by then. I also note that the bill does include the minimum wage increase that Democrats were going to have a hard time passing otherwise. And I hope the Democrats will take up certain elements of the vetoed bill -- the Murtha legislation limiting tours of duty and mandating more time between tours, for example -- as stand-alone legislation. Let Republicans try to spin "longer tours of duty" as "pro-troop." But these Democrats ain't the brightest of bulbs. They'll need to be told over and over again what they're supposed to do. But, hey, I'm a citizen. It's my job.

I sing my song to the wide-open spaces/I sing my heart out to the infinite sea.

Both the Council for a Livable World and ActforChange help you oppose the withdrawal-free supplemental Iraq spending bill; the latter link is an email contact tool. The vote is today, so you can use either one to ask your Representative to vote against it and insist upon those damn Democrats doing something with their newfound majority power. I know, the war is going to drag on regardless, more soldiers are going to die anyway, and the more Republicans left twisting in the wind all summer the better. But I don't play those games anymore. And I do wish Democrats would say, more clearly and loudly, that "cutting off funds for the war" does not mean cutting off funds for getting our troops the hell out of there.

Senator Harkin (D-IA), my first vain hope for President in 1992, has just introduced a bill that would close Guantanamo Bay and force Tha Bush Mobb to just charge the folks that are there already, if they can. The bill would cut off funding for Guantanamo Bay within 120 days of enactment, but would not, in case you were wondering, cut off funding for transferring uncharged detainees to their home country (or other country that won't torture or persecute them), or for transferring actually charged or sentenced detainees to Fort Leavenworth, which is the place national security prisoners usually go. You know, sort of like "cutting off funds for the war" doesn't mean cutting off funds for moving the troops back home. Did I mention that already? That's because not enough people get it. Here's where to go.

who are these strangers who pass through the door/who cover your action and go you one more?

MoveOn already has over 300,000 signatures on a petition asking Congress to make oil company price gouging a federal crime, as per H.R. 1252. Yes, the federal government may regulate price gouging by oil companies who might be price-gouging in many states or in every state -- not that I'd be terribly upset if any of these states passed even stricter price-gouging laws. To the benighted, just two words, which I've said many times before: record profits. The House may vote as early as tomorrow; the petition sits here, waiting.

In their service to big corporations the Justice Department will stop at nothing! Not even, for example, at sending common music downloaders, mixtape makers, and mash-up artists to jail. That'll learn 'em! Folks who download music as a way of avoiding paying for any of it are not heroes. But the Justice Department's proposal is like taking a sledgehammer to an ant. That's Tha Bush Mobb way, you know -- plus, of course, Tha Bush Mobb thinks the ant's the problem when there are rats in the walls. Oppose their nefarious plans here.

Jewish Voice for Peace plans to mobilize thousands of folks from across the land in Washington, D.C. on June 10 and 11, to oppose U.S. support for the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Israel's 40-year occupation strikes me as, at best, providing them with the exact opposite of security no matter how big or high their wall gets. American public opinion has been (slowly) turning against the occupation since the late 1980s, but American politicians in both parties remain reflexively pro-Israel, to the point where they regard any criticism of Israel as somehow anti-Semitic. But Scott Ritter put it pretty well during his lengthy Q&A with Seymour Hersh back in December: if you want to support your friend, you tell your friend when they're wrong, and you don't give money and arms to your friend if your friend still wants to do what you don't support. Right-wingers who fudge the meaning of "support" until it means "lock-step agreement" probably have a little trouble with all of that. Here's where to sign up, if you'd like to go.

well bad news travels like wildfire/good news travels slow/they all call me wildfire.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has decided to permit 38 more non-organic ingredients in products bearing the "USDA Organic" seal. The USDA claims that most of the ingredients are food colorings from plants not commercially available in organic form, but if that's true, why make the public comment period only seven days long -- after having taken months to compile a list of ingredients with corporate help? Why not confront those of us who would object? Maybe because Tha Bush Mobb hates us for our freedoms? The USDA has already watered down organic standards at the request of corporations like Wal-Mart and Shop-Rite, and under Tha Decidah, the use of the executive branch as a corporate welfare trough is unlikely to stop. Help provide the necessary beatdown here, by tomorrow, unfortunately, because that's when the public comment period ends.

I have toll-free numbers handy, which you may use to ask your House Reps to impeach Alberto Gonzales already -- 1.800.828.0498, 1.800.614.2803, and 1.800.459.1887 -- and I also have an email contact tool, all courtesy the People's Email Network. I received this notice after the Department of Justice's former number-two man, James Comey, told the Senate the melodramatic tale of how Alberto Gonzales tried to force a bed-ridden John Ashcroft to sign off on the warrantless wiretapping program back in 2004 -- which, Mr. Comey, properly deputized by Mr. Ashcroft, refused to do, and which Mr. Ashcroft, once so confronted, still refused to do. And then Mr. Gonzales replaced Mr. Ashcroft. How does Tha Bush Mobb always find someone even worse?

New Jersey businesses are anxious to avert the passing of S. 2249, which would provide Family Leave Insurance for New Jersey's workers. Businesses no doubt cite abuse of the federal Family Medical Leave Act as reason enough to oppose S. 2249, but it isn't -- having read the Family Medical Leave Act, I've concluded that businesses would end worker abuse of the Act if they'd just read the damn law. No worker should tolerate a co-worker abusing the law, but employers are more culpable, because they could end it. And if they don't end it, I suspect they don't want to end it, and if they don't want to end it, I suspect they're trying to come up with a clever way of claiming financial hardship, as a prelude to outsourcing. Mr. Bush's Department of Labor has itself dropped hints that the federal Family Medical Leave Act ought to be revised, so, if you're a New Jersey resident, support the state legislation here.

penny rants for the day of May 20, 2007: Operation Return to Sanity!

Many folks think Rudy Giuliani's now-more-emphatic support for abortion rights will derail his quest for the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination, but I doubt it. Mr. Giuliani's a smart dude, so he's already figured out who makes up the real Republican base: not "values voters," as they're called, but "terrified voters." A terrified voter will do anything to be safe, and that includes sacrificing closely-held beliefs about abortion and gay marriage in order to vote for the candidate who best reassures them that they won't die tomorrow. And if James Dobson and his ilk still need prompting, Rudy can always take one of their heroes as his running mate. Mr. Giuliani's obsession with terror should do well with independents, too: most of them don't see any difference between Democrats and Republicans anyway, so they'll go with the candidate who sounds like he's ready to fight the bad guys. Mr. Giuliani's posturing about 9.11 and terrorism is an annoyance now, but I'll feel bad for him when the economy implodes on his watch. At least he'll try to fix it when it does, unlike certain Oval Office occupants I could name.

U.S. immigration officials detained a six-year-old boy for ten hours on March 6. The boy was a U.S. citizen, no less, though his father may or may not have been. His father even tried to contact a family member to watch the boy, but the immigration officials denied him that opportunity, more than once. Remember how slowly ten hours went by when you were six? Now imagine those ten hours going by slowly while you're terrified of going to jail for no reason you can possibly imagine. Really, Franz Kafka couldn't have come up with this stuff. I see three possibilities for the officials' conduct: a) they haven't been adequately trained; b) they've been given bad instructions which supposedly pre-empt real dangers but don't; or c) they've been given an impossible task (deport all the aliens! By the end of the day!) and are quite understandably frustrated with it. (I do not consider either "they're just bad people" or "they're just racists" a possibility. If I did, the terrorists would already have won.) Normally I blame the man at the top, but Mr. Bush has said on several occasions that it's just impossible to deport all illegal aliens, and of course he's absolutely right. Instead, I'll blame the men at the top, meaning Mr. Bush and his three predecessors, since they've all permitted corporations to do more or less whatever they like -- and corporations really, really, like to import illegal workers they can pay in dung pellets.

At least one natural bee farmer says she doesn't know any natural bee farmers whose bees suffer from "colony collapse" disorder. Said bee farmer instead points to big bee-grower practices -- widespread antibiotic use; pesticides aiming to deal with varroa mites; hauling hives long-distance by truck to mass-pollinate industrial crops; growing bees to be big instead of healthy. Our regular readers will sense a pattern: the bigger the Animal Farm, the worse off the animals. And our regular readers will also sense another pattern: the more profit you pile up, the more damage you'll do to your community (in this case, the ecosystem). Did I mention that there are still starving people long after the advent of factory farms? All praise the new economy!

Finally, we send a big raspberry to Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), who not only let Tha Bush Mobb write the legal language of that new "free" trade deal they don't want to talk about, but who also thinks that people who oppose this secret "free" trade deal with Tha Bush Mobb are "wasting my time." That's how a man talks when he always wins elections by 80-point margins. Conventional wisdom says that the Democrats are selling out their fair-trade wing because they need Wall Street money to win elections. If the Democrats have in fact made this calculus, then they're even stupider than I thought. How have the Democrats done in elections since NAFTA? Let's see: they lost the House in 1994 for the first time in 40 years, reclaiming it in 2006 only after two awful years from Mr. Bush. They also lost the Senate in 1994, got it back sort-of in 2001 when Jim Jeffords put both feet out the door, lost it again in 2002, and got it back sort-of again in 2006 only after two awful years from Mr. Bush. And none of their Presidential candidates garnered 50% of the popular vote during this time, either. Yes, this "suck up to Wall Street" plan is clearly pure genius. But all is not lost: some of the Democrats' new members might be ready to stand up -- like Senators Brown and Casey the Younger, who both won by decisive margins in 2006 at least partly by campaigning against "free" trade.

no depression in heaven.

Governor Corzine (D/R) of New Jersey has said he wants to "monetize" our toll roads. But "monetize" sounds like a fancy word for "privatize," sorta like "privatize" is a fancy word for "screw the taxpayers for short-term gain." New Jersey PIRG has developed six principles that aim to protect the public interest in re "monetization." These principles include: public control over transportation planning/management; fair value for sale/lease; no deal longer than 30 years; high maintenance/safety standards; complete transparency of the deal to the public; and wise use of the proceeds (i.e. not for the sort of short-term budget gimmicks that Mr. Corzine ran against). I don't think "privatization" is a good idea, even as I acknowledge that, for example, the British privatization of the national rail system isn't nearly the disaster it could be. I think private corporations will sacrifice anything to the altar of profits. But if you think this petition will help matters, go ahead and sign it.

I didn't even know there was a national gasoline boycott the other day. I'm especially jealous because one of my co-workers got, like, four emails about it, which is four more than I got. Realistically, a one-day boycott doesn't do all that much, since folks don't buy gas every day but still use gas every day, but I still would have taken part and told everyone I knew about it. Meanwhile, Congress contemplates the Fuel Economy Reform Act (H.R. 1506), which would increase fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks for the first time in over 30 years. Mr. Bush will try to sit on it until his term ends, and this Democratic Congress generally needs a match lit under its collective posterior on just about every front, but none of that changes our duty.

while I, weary traveler, must always take the slow path.

Federal net neutrality rules expired last summer. You remember net neutrality, right? The principle that states that any page you access on the internet should load as fast as any other? That corporations shouldn't have the "right" to dictate to you which pages you can look at and which ones you can't? The FCC is currently deciding whether or not to renew net neutrality rules. I'm guessing they're leaning toward not renewing them, but they'll have a hell of a fight on their hands if they pull that guff. Public comment period closes on June 15; Common Cause helps you send your comment.

The House of Representatives may take up H.R. 811, the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act of 2007, next week. H.R. 811 would mandate paper trails for electronic voting machines, which would be nice, because those machines are easily hackable and their manufacturers don't like to provide their code for review so they'd be less hackable. H.R. 811 also mandates random audits of voting machines and forces their manufacturers to provide code for review by experts and litigants. Moreover, an amendment to H.R. 811 gives you, good voter, the right to use a paper ballot if you request it. None of these mandates violates a corporation's right to privacy or right to compete in a marketplace or whatever; rather, they force corporations who manufacture voting machines to be accountable to the people. You know, since it is our government and all. Like H.R. 550, H.R. 811 is a Rush Holt (D-NJ) production. Here's where to express-yourself-don't-repress-yourself.

Speaking of America's Greatest State, the New Jersey Assembly Environment Committee passed the open space funding bill (ACR 10) on Monday, but Governor Corzine, a Democrat who's looking more Republican all the time, has been trying to kill the deal behind closed doors. Why would he do such a thing? Because he's trying to sell off massive chunks of public land to hedge against future budget deficits, and funding the protection of open spaces from development would make that aim a lot harder. It seems like former Governor Whitman, allegedly a "Republican in Name Only," was a better steward of New Jersey's open spaces. If you're a New Jersey resident, you can call the State House at 1.609.292.6000 and say you want the Legislature to fund ACR 10 and you want the Governor to sign it. Of course, ACR 10 will only fund open spaces until November, when voters get to decide whether to continue the funding or not -- at which point its opponents will shout that such funding will increase taxes, when the question before the voters specifically states that revenues for open space funding would only come from existing sales taxes. But I don't demand victory; I ask only for a fair fight.

here on earth.

"Courageous members of Congress are now trying to restore the fundamental right of habeas corpus through an amendment to the defense authorization bill," so says an email in my box from ActforChange. It's a shame we have to tell Mr. Bush his job time and time again, but this is our allotted task, and we must not refuse it. Here's where to tell Speaker Pelosi to permit this amendment to pass through the House Rules Committee. I presume she has some pull with said Committee -- though she apparently has no pull whatsoever to stop secret "free trade" deals, even though voter anger at "free trade" helped elect a lot of her comrades.

MoveOn is wrong to call CBS's firing of Major General John Batiste for criticizing Mr. Bush's war "censorship." But they're right to call it "hypocrisy," since CBS retains other "consultants" who push the Bush Mobb on air. They'd be right to call it "cowardice" and "shallowness," too. From Survivor: Race War to big bonuses for executives while stock prices plummet to hiring sports guys to run your news department, CBS is yet another hotbed of bold thinking. So the MoveOn petition is here, and though it included the word "censor," I signed it anyway. There's room for comments.

Senator McCain stands at the ready to defy the majority of Americans who oppose Mr. Bush's war -- specifically, tomorrow at around 6.30 pm, he'll stand in front of the annual New York Republican state committee dinner at the Sheraton Hotel at 811 7th Ave (at 53rd St.). Poor New York Republicans. They seemed so nice, and now there are so few of them. Anyway, anti-war protestors will be standing outside at well. If you'd like to join them, you can find out more about the demonstration here (scroll down a bit).

Yes, I have heard the news that the Reverend Jerry Falwell died yesterday, and I can't help but feel a bit sad. He influenced me a lot as a youth -- though not in the way he might have intended. His extremism in defense of a "moral" culture (i.e. a culture that hates gays and puts women in their "place") forever turned me off to anything Republicans and/or the Religious Right had to say -- and, ironically, has helped create a less moral culture. "Less"? Yes, less -- set aside that our culture now lies more and worships selfishness more and hates communities more and, yes, hates individuality more than we ever did during the alleged "Me Generation." Rev. Falwell's support for Republican pro-corporate policies has also helped spread the violence and sexual glorification he so despised, for now the big telecoms are so huge that they're accountable to no one, let alone their consumers. The man even opposed a la carte cable packaging, which would give people more power to keep children away from the things he hated. Hate to pile on, but it's also really hard to argue that his posturing reduced abortions or made families stronger. Nonetheless, Jerry, I wish you a peaceful rest. I wouldn't want to make you stay with Karl Rove for all eternity.

three more the hard way.

Our attempts to stop a new generation of nukes from being built have thus far failed -- the Democrats must be anxious to show how tough they are, which I've found to be a pretty good way not to be tough -- and worse, the new defense authorization bill also includes almost $10 billion to fund that missile defense system that couldn't even pass stacked tests in 2004 and which could be easily befuddled by Mylar balloons or reflective paint. And no, "just launch more missiles at the incoming missile" is not a sane option, because taxpayers ain't made of money. Here is the UCS contact tool.

As noted earlier, massive webcasting fee increases go into effect on July 15; these increases will obliterate internet radio and protect dinosaurs like Clear Channel or undeserving big telecoms like AOL. But Reps. Inslee (D-WA) and Marzullo (R-IL) ride to the rescue with the Internet Radio Equality Act of 2007, while Sens. Wyden (D-OR) and Brownback (R-KS) have introduced the same bill in the upper house. And why would forty Senators filibuster this bill? To prove that they hate small businesses even as they claim to defend small businesses every time they hand out welfare to their corporate paymasters? To upend yet again the meaning of the word "equality"? FreePress supplies the contact tool.

Finally, since it must be Sam Brownback Day, H.R. 1593, the Second Chance Act, must (for reasons unknown to me) pass two-thirds of the House tonight in order to go to the Senate. The Second Chance Act would help ex-prisoners reconnect with their communities upon re-entering society, by funding their needs for (among other things) housing, education, and mental health and substance abuse treatment. Like Noam Chomsky, I find that social spending really gives you quite the bang for your buck, and is quite an undeserving target for most right-wingers (Mr. Brownback excluded, in this case) who would better concentrate on waste and fraud and corporate welfare. Like, for example, missile defense spending, which strikes me as an unholy nexus of all three. Anyway, tools are in the upper left-hand corner (since FAMM's action page isn't loading correctly, for some reason).

on the fast track to a holy righteous smackdown.

Congressional Democrats have apparently reached a deal with Mr. Bush to extend his "fast-track" authority to make trade deals with other countries -- but no one wants to say exactly what's in the deal. Well, Democrats, how do you like these apples? Since you won't tell us what you're doing, and since it's your job to tell us what you're doing if you won't do our bidding, we're going to fight this deal to the death. And with some three dozen Democrats in the House already on record as opposing corporate-style "free trade," this deal's got a good chance of dying. Public Citizen provides the smackdown tool, so get smacking.

I guess the Democrats aren't pure evil, though, because they want to expand the EITC and the Child Tax Credit, and because they might be able to rein in (read: not repeal) the Alternative Minimum Tax, this time for real. Meanwhile, four Democratic Reps (DeLauro, Doggett, Emanuel, Levin the Younger) have introduced the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act, which aims to curb corporate offshore tax evasion, a task deemed insufficiently patriotic by the last several Republican Congresses. Read more about the bill here, and use the tools in the upper left-hand corner to contact your Congressfolk. (Yes, I have long been impatient with just saying that when I don't have a handy contact tool to provide. I'm working on it.)

Didn't think we forgot about increasing the Minimum Wage, did you? Of course not. Though both House and Senate have passed minimum wage bills -- far too burdened with business tax cuts for my taste, frankly -- and have even worked out a compromise bill in conference, and have even sent the legislation to Mr. Bush (who vetoed it, because it was part of the Iraq supplemental), we still don't have a minimum wage increase. The toll-free number is 1.800.459.1887; tell your Congressfolk you want a stand-alone minimum wage bill passed with a quickness.

penny rants for the day of May 13, 2007.

George W. Bush has accomplished so much while occupying the Oval Office, and here's another line for his Hall of Fame plaque: his war has just about gutted the National Guard. So says, no, not that liberal jerk at Thieves in the Temple, but the nation's Governors, some of whom are still Republican after the 2006 "thumpin'." Congress is contemplating legislation to give said Governors more control over the National Guard, which suits a unit that normally helps out with local natural disasters, not poorly-managed foreign wars. You'd think the depletion of the National Guard would convert pro-war Americans en masse, and though I'm sure it converts some, the right-wing rageheads and their "liberal" media enablers never learn, and together they comprise the proverbial emptiest wagon in our nation's discourse.

I've never bought into the "tort reform" movement -- seems to me "tort reformers" generally rely on isolated anecdotes about alleged lawsuit abuse, and these anecdotes aren't even that conclusive -- and factcheck.org illustrates yet another reason why. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce ad described therein does cite an actual study with actual facts in it, but surprise, surprise, the ad isn't even all that clever about distorting the facts -- among other things, the study cited doesn't distinguish between frivolous and non-frivolous lawsuits, but the ad blithely assumes they're all frivolous. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce should be more careful about summoning such demons, because the vast majority of all lawsuits in America are filed by? Corporations. I'm just guessing you'll find most of your "lawsuit abuse" in there, and not so much in the class action lawsuits against corporations that dump crap into your food and air and water and life.

I'd love to see an exit poll of Regent University students after Mitt Romney's address there. Why? Because I'm told that Religious Righters don't buy his act, polished and confident though it is. It's possible they suspect his act merely because it's polished and confident, and if that were true I'd sure think better of them. But I'm more inclined to think think that Mr. Romney, however good a game he talks, doesn't connect with his intended audience about the most critical part of his "transformation," which would be his redemption, and his intended audience must sense that. Mr. Romney says he's changed his mind about a lot of things, but he doesn't seem to have experienced a dark night of the soul as a part of that change -- he hasn't, as they say in church, been in the valley. Admittedly that's a lot to ask of a panderer; Newt Gingrich's contrition act on James Dobson's show wasn't that convincing, and if Mr. Romney were suddenly to get all John Edwards on the far right, they'd probably see through that, too, especially since it would be coming so late. But a pandering act that can really connect on redemption would win, since I presume Religious Righters are as acutely aware of their sins as I am. I hope at the end of all of this I'll understand my enemies more as they are, and less as I would wish them to be.

sooner or later/love is gonna getcha/sooner or later/love is gonna win.

Congress plans to take up tax issues next week, and we can prod them to increase the number of folks eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit. These programs enjoy wide bipartisan support and really do help people get out of poverty while also reducing the welfare rolls. I guess all right-wingers could do in opposition (since right-wingers are too PC to resort to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" talk anymore) is claim that any attempt to expand these tax credits is just part of the Democrats' nefarious plan to enact "the biggest tax increase in history" -- though, as we all know, rolling back the Bush tax cuts for the already too-rich won't be the biggest tax increase in history.

The House continues to wrangle over lobbying and ethics reform, and OMB Watch supports disclosure for "hired-gun" or "astroturf" grassroots lobbyists. H.R. 2093, co-sponsored by Reps. Meehan (D-MA) and Shays (R-CT), does not discourage you from contacting your elected representatives, as right-wingers might have told you; rather, it requires firms that get paid more than $100,000 in a quarter to conduct legislative campaigns to report their activities. You know, because if you have to tell someone what you're up to, maybe you won't be up to no good so damn much. You can send a letter using OMB Watch's contact tool.

(You know, "grassroots," the Grass Roots? Sorry. At least I didn't try to quote "Midnight Confessions.")

people who need people.

A Human Rights Watch report suggests that Wal-Mart uses cameras meant to catch shoplifters for a more nefarious purpose: spying on employees who attempt to organize unions. Why are they all so afraid? Because it hurts too much to face the moral, spiritual, and yes-even-financial dead end where the mad drive for profits-above-all leads? Write Wal-Mart's new "Executive Vice President of People," Pat Curran, using this contact tool from American Rights at Work, and ask her to treat her "people" better.

Reps. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Todd Platts (R-PA) are ready to unleash a new fuel economy bill in the House, one which promises to raise automobile fuel economy and thus reduce emissions, consumption, and your fuel bills. I'm not one of those who assume that because a Republican's name is on the bill, it's automatically not worth supporting. And I'm also not one of those who assume that if you do call on your Reps to support this bill, you think you've done enough. Only right-wingers think within walls. And they've made their own hell that way, haven't they?

you can hear my hammer/you can hear my song.

Incredible as this sounds, Mr. Bush plans to veto the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act passed overwhelmingly by the House the other day. Why? Because it extends hate crimes protection to gays. Not because he thinks the "hate crimes" designation intrudes upon the judicial sentencing process, which many reasonable people believe. But excluding gays from such protections if we already have them? Only someone who hates gays, and therefore, quite possibly, also hates himself, would do that, and sure enough DefCon sniffs out Religious Right bigots behind Mr. Bush's sudden veto threat. DefCon supplies a contact tool with which you can contact certain Religious Right figures, if you think they care what you think. You might want to write Mr. Bush, too, though he certainly doesn't care what you think.

As early as tomorrow, the House Armed Services Committee will vote on whether to fund the Reliable Replacement Warhead. This, when the nukes we got will work for another fifty years! Funding the RRW strikes me as a bad way of scaring other countries -- the current frontier in warfare, in case Tha Bush Mobb hasn't noticed, is guerrilla warfare, aimed at destroying the morale of a people even more than the morale of an army. And the RRW is certainly a bad way of scaring terrorists, whose bases of operation move fluidly and who are thus very difficult to attack with nukes, which are, to put it nicely, not terribly precise war-making instruments. Did I mention that every new nuke built is a nuke a terrorist can steal? Send a message to Armed Service Committee members here.

A recent ruling by the Copyright Royalty Board threatens to increase licensing rates for web broadcasters -- enough so that most will be put out of business. And over-the-air radio broadcasters, dinosaurs that they are, will thus be permitted to prevail. What an unwarranted intrusion of federal power. And yes, I do so love sounding like a conservative when I attack right-wing ideas. The Internet Radio Equality Act would nullify the Board's ruling and set more common-sensical rate standards. Get thee hither to learn more and take action.

penny rants for the day of May 6, 2007.

The Republican Presidential debate on May 3 was as bad as I'd feared: seven fellows out of ten, by my count, who are excellent extemporaneous speakers -- and eight fellows out of ten who live on a different planet than the rest of humanity. I tend toward faith in the American electorate, but if Mr. Bush supplies us with another war or another terrorist attack by 2008, too many voters will forget the difference between reality and fantasy, and will go with the fellow who seems more like he knows what he's talking about, which, judging by these first two debates, will be the Republican. I know it's early, but I wouldn't go rushing into that 2008 Presidential futures market just yet. (Factcheck.org runs down both Democratic misstatements and Republican ones, but those Republicans slung around so many numbers that I suspect them all.)

The connection between disappearing bees and cell phones is even more tenuous than I thought -- "tenuous" as in "nonexistent until the research says otherwise." Turns out the original German study looked into cordless phones, not cell phones, and was, according to one of its researchers, "too small" to be very meaningful. Another researcher was obviously quite angry: "Ever since The Independent wrote their article, for which they never called or wrote to us, none of us have been able to do any of our work because all our time has been spent in phone calls and e-mails trying to set things straight. This is a horror story for every researcher to have your study reduced to this." All I can say in the Independent's defense (and mine) is that at least their article thought the news hook was ecology, not economics, as the New York Times thought. But what a shame that I would settle for that.

penny rants for the day of May 3, 2007: does that make me crazy?

According to an allegory spun by Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), the Chicago Cubs are a lot like our enemies in Iraq! I know, I know: those damn blue state baseball teams! But wait a minute -- how can Mr. Shimkus justify an allegiance to a team from another state? Doesn't he know that his beloved Cardinals' third baseman reads Dostoevsky and hangs out in Greenwich Village and the Haight? Seriously, these folks are getting as desperate as Michelle Malkin with a checkered skirt and a set of pom-poms. I have a question for the next fool who calls me a "surrender monkey": if we withdraw from Iraq, will we swear in President bin Laden as a result? We need to think clearly about these matters, folks, or the Cubs have already won.

Incredibly, the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled that the EPA is not liable for any harm resulting from lying about World Trade Center-area air quality after 9.11. Why? Because, according to the Court, the EPA's actions do not constitute a "shock to the conscience." And why is this? Because the EPA's duty to inform the public properly and the federal government's duty to keep peace and order are "competing obligations," and thus, I guess, the EPA was just doing what it had to do. But why are these obligations "competing"? Seems to me that "keeping the peace" must involve dealing honestly with the truth, even if dealing honestly with the truth increases the work the federal government must do to keep the peace. Ah, that's it: we mustn't make the federal government do more work, even if the work is necessary. The plaintiffs were five WTC-area workers who didn't have protective equipment because the EPA said the air was OK. Now they have serious chronic conditions, but they don't plan to appeal -- not, I would think, because their lawsuit was "frivolous" or "treasonous," as I'm sure some benighted souls think, but because they're just trying to get through the day.

Bruce Bartlett says something that'll shock many right-wingers but won't shock any rational people: conservatives should consider voting for Hillary Clinton in 2008 because Republicans are going to lose anyway and Sen. Clinton is the most conservative Democrat in the race. But even Mr. Bartlett has a little trouble thinking straight when he defines "conservative." Of course I think he's a bit dishonest to suggest that fiscal responsibility is an exclusively "conservative" position -- only a right-wing starve-the-beast extremist says "the bigger the deficit, the better." And regardless of how Republicans vote, I think protectionism is the conservative position, not globalization. Wouldn't a real conservative want economic power in the hands of the smallest possible community? Wouldn't a real conservative think of a "global economy" as a near-synonym for "foreign entanglements"? And, of course, I think too many of today's "conservatives" are too concerned with social spending, which isn't nearly as "fiscally irresponsible" as waste and fraud.

(My weekend starts early this week, so penny rants are also early. That doesn't preclude another set of penny rants later on this weekend, however.)

get the message.

Mr. Bush vetoed the war supplemental yesterday, as expected, so MoveOn has organized "emergency response rallies" all over the United States, in which we may urge Congress to hold its ground, as well as (for all the good it will do) urging Mr. Bush to comply with the will of the people as expressed by Congress. Yes, Mr. Bush gets to use his veto whenever he likes, but that doesn't mean we have to sit back and take it -- we have the right to apply a new round of pressure whenever we choose. The weather's fine from where I'm sitting, so go find yourself a rally.

In the wake of the Supreme Court's disastrous Gonzales v. Carhart ruling, Senator Boxer has introduced the Freedom of Choice Act, which would prevent governments from, you know, interfering with a woman's access to an abortion as protected by Roe, Casey, and Stenberg (and as partially, and wrongly, circumscribed by Carhart). The Act does not, as some might try to tell you, require the state to protect abortions after fetal viability, except in health/life instances. The ACLU provides the contact tool.

Now Mr. Bush wants to increase drilling in Wyoming's Upper Green River Valley, which, guess what, is part of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. And of course Tha Bush Mobb doesn't want to consider the effects of its drilling all that carefully -- won't permanently protect some areas, won't cluster drilling infrastructure so it impacts wildlife less, won't follow seasonal drilling restrictions so as to reduce interference with the largest wildlife migration corridor in the continental U.S. But the Bureau of Land Management will perform its democratic duty and take comments on this matter until June 18 ("who authorized them to do that?" Mr. Bush is saying, I'm sure). The Wilderness Society provides the tool with which you may comment.

triangulation equals weakness.

The House plans to consider a bill reauthorizing Head Start this week -- but certain forces plan a "motion to recommit" so the relevant bill can go back to committee and get an amendment attached, permitting religious groups to discriminate in hiring based on religion! And the House already voted against this amendment in committee back in mid-March! I thought Nancy Pelosi was supposed to put an end to this sort of thing. The NAACP has some contact material here, and Americans United provides a contact tool.

I didn't even know yesterday was "Workers' Memorial Day," a day to honor workers killed or hurt on the job every year, but I'll celebrate it every year from now on. In the meantime, the Protecting America's Workers Act moves through House (H.R. 2049) and Senate (S. 1244). The bill would expand OSHA protections for millions of workers, strengthen whistleblower protections, and increase penalties for safety violations. Mr. Bush, as you might have guessed, has largely let corporations police themselves, because corporations never let the profit margin interfere with their duty to their workers. Unionvoice provides the contact tool.

Last week Reps. Salazar (D-CO) and Mahoney (D-FL) introduced the Save the Family Farm and Ranch Act of 2007, which would exempt family farms that provide 50 percent or more of a family's income from the Estate Tax. But this is a waste of time. We all remember that the American Farm Bureau Federation, which espouses Estate Tax repeal, could not cite a single example of a farm lost due to the Estate Tax when pressed by the New York Times back in 2001. Moreover, as a Citizens for Tax Justice paper explained last summer, family farms receive plenty of Estate Tax breaks beyond the $2 million exemption in effect this year. Maybe this is just a way for Messrs. Salazar and Mahoney to establish some right-wing bona fides meaningless to liberals in the know. But I think legislators have better things to do with their time. I also think legislators who work hard on the things that matter have a better shot at re-election than those who constantly triangulate. Tools are in the upper left-hand corner.