Thieves in the Temple.

light posting notice.

As much as I'd love to continue with these surreal Doctor Who references, I must instead inform my readers that posting will be light for at least a week. I'll be moving again, which I hope will not become an annual event.

In the meantime, the Senate plans to vote on the Employee Free Choice Act tomorrow, and you will probably want to call your Senators and tell them to vote for that bill.

eat your heart out, Reagan's Coattails!

The hits just keep on comin' with these little "free trade" deals the Democrats want to make: the trade deal with Peru, due to be signed June 30, would allow Citibank to sue Peru if it decides to reverse its failed social security privatization program. You can see the sort of precedent that would set, right? If our government were so stupid as to try to privatize our Social Security, corporations could sue to keep privatization going no matter how many poor seniors wound up out in the street. Who are the owners of government again, according to George Allen? I know he didn't mean it, but he said it well: the real owners of the government are the people. Not the corporations. Never, ever the corporations. Hand out the necessary beatdown here.

And the hits just keep on comin' for the unholy alliance between the "values" voter and the "terrified" voter: the Navy fires a translator of Arabic just for being gay, and, sadly, Alberto Gonzales is unavailable to claim the translator was actually "incompetent," and then retract the claim. What was it Barry Goldwater said in 1993? That he cared more that our soldiers could shoot straight than that they were straight? The Military Readiness Enhancement Act would fix this; here's one contact tool and here's another. Gay soldiers serve openly in 20 of 25 NATO countries, yet we still coddle our religious bigots. For shame, America!

H.R. 2802, the Local Community Radio Act of 2007, would permit the creation of more low-power FM (or LPFM) radio stations; a companion bill in the Senate, co-sponsored by Senators McCain (he remembers!) and Cantwell, will follow shortly. The more stations not owned by megacorporations the better, I say -- the better for racial and sexual diversity, and the better for regional diversity as well. Of course, the National Association of Broadcasters opposes it, so citizens will have to jam their Representatives' lines to get this done. FreePress provides the email contact tool, and tools for calling your Reps are, as always, in the upper left-hand corner of this humble page. And hey, if you want to start your own low-power FM station, the Prometheus Project can help you.

In other news, Harold Saxon's party won an astounding 507 seats in yesterday's election in the U.K.. Saxon now has four times as many seats in Parliament as Labour and Tory combined; the Liberal Democrats got only 7 seats, and that'll teach them to abandon their call for a 50% tax bracket. To have singlehandedly broken the old two-party stranglehold in Britain, this Mr. Saxon must be a truly mesmerizing fellow. And you lucky citizens of Great Britain will get to see your new Golden Age unfold on BBC1 Saturday night at 7.15 pm! Be ready for the sound of drums!

what this country needs is a Doctor.

At least four of 10 Republican Presidential candidates would nuke Iran in order to prevent them from getting nukes -- because, golly, we wouldn't want irresponsible people getting nukes. Forget all the Bush/Cheney posturing, forget all of Ahmedinejad's posturing, forget all of the U.N.'s posturing: the only issue is whether Iran complies with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty they signed. That's all that matters. 9.11 did not change this. If we use 9.11 as an excuse whenever we want to live the Jack Bauer adventure, then the terrorists have already won. Council for a Livable World sponsors a letter urging Presidential candidates to refrain from such monstrous declarations.

Rep. Jim McGovern's amendment to the FY 2008 Foreign Operations Appropriations bill would close the School for the Americas, or the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, or whatever it'll be called when Tha Bush Mobb tries to reopen it. You know the place? The place where torturers go to learn to -- ahem, the place where users of enhanced techniques go to enhance their technique? Democracy in Action has the contact tool.

And finally, a special message for all my readers in the United Kingdom: less than 24 hours from Election Day, an ICM Research poll shows that 46% of likely voters want Harold Saxon as their next Prime Minister. David Cameron can wash the dishes with all the environmentally-friendly dish soap he wants, but he's got nothing on Harold Saxon, whom I would call a truly masterful politician. So, good citizens of Great Britain, don't forget to vote! The real golden age is coming!

vote Saxon! plus errata.

The USDA's nefarious plan to allow 38 non-organic ingredients to be used in products labeled "organic" isn't going as well as they'd like -- this month a federal court ordered them to stop permitting their use, and even the famed "liberal" papers in New York and Los Angeles ran articles about it. The Organic Consumers' Association continues its call for a reopening of the public comment period, which the USDA ended on June 7; meanwhile, you can write the USDA Secretary here with your concerns. "USDA" is going to be as bad a word in this house as "EPA" soon.

So Republicans decided that the no-confidence vote on Alberto Gonzales was "useless"? Be careful what you wish for, pimps! Common Cause now calls for Mr. Gonzales's impeachment, which, is, like, a real thing we can do to really end his career in the reality-based community. Doesn't matter to me that the Senate wouldn't even do something non-binding; I only care about doing something right. You can sign on to that noble cause here. We'll teach that Mr. Gonzales to make Arlen Specter mad.

Largely due to the myth that it "outlaws secret ballots" for union members, which it certainly does not and I wish someone else would say so, the Employee Free Choice Act hasn't yet come up for a vote in the Senate, so pro-EFCA forces are ramping it up. American Rights at Work sponsors a rally on Tuesday at 2 pm in Washington, DC, beginning at the Upper Senate Park at Delaware Avenue and C Street NE; if you can't attend the rally, you can send a message of solidarity to the ralliers. Also, you can talk to your Senators again. Sometimes they need to hear it a few times before they act.

They do seem to be hearing it, however, about Mr. Bush's "Reliable Replacement Warhead" program. Ha ha ha! He subtly implies that current nukes aren't "reliable" when you can turn over every rock in Arizona and find a scientific study saying they still are! But, propaganda aside, new nuke programs have been having a lot of trouble gaining traction in Republican Congresses as well as Democratic ones, and the Senate seems ready to cut RRWs from the Energy and Water Appropriations Bill, at least. TrueMajority has the contact tool.

Finally, an error I feel absolutely terrible about: I have in fact had the Presidential line of succession wrong all these years. Per the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, Nancy Pelosi is in fact ahead of Robert Byrd, much as I'd like it to be the other way around (not that Ms. Pelosi could be any worse than Mr. Bush or Mr. Cheney). In the old days, the President Pro Tempore of the Senate was next in line behind the President and Vice President, but that hasn't been true for sixty years now, and I'm sorry for saying otherwise. Please make a note of it.

see America right.

On Thursday, the Habeus Corpus Restoration Act, a Pat Leahy/Arlen Specter production, passed out of Judiciary by an 11-8 vote. The bill only restores habeus corpus rights for detainees, but other bills, like Senator Harkin's and Senator Dodd's, would do more to counter Mr. Bush's assault on constitutional rights -- if they pass. The ACLU offers a comprehensive approach, a petition demanding that, among other things, we also end torture and extraordinary rendition. And speaking of men who'd slay habeus corpus if they could, the Senate plans to hold a "no confidence" vote in re Mr. Gonzales today. "No confidence" is not the same as "impeachment," but must ideological purity compel me to refuse an opportunity to speak out against the man? He's been horrible, and he's been dumb about it. Tha Bush Mobb likes dumb. But I don't. And I'm gonna say so.

Pennsylvania residents take note: PennPIRG offers a contact tool urging the Pennsylvania state government to commit $800 million in new spending on SEPTA this year, as recommended by the Pennsylvania Transportation Funding & Reform Commission. I can already hear the complaints: "SEPTA sucks!" "Where are we going to find the money?" "Why do we always have to spend taxpayer money on things that don't work?" "They're just going to steal the money." Well, keeping organizations from stealing taxpayer funds is a separate issue, one about which we progressives have no business being silent. And America has spent too little on public transportation since the Selfish Years began in 1980. And SEPTA isn't a world-class transportation system precisely because the government won't fund it. As for finding the money, how about making Pennsylvania's income tax code more progressive? What are rich Pennsylvanians going to do about it? Move to New Jersey?

Seems like I've been writing about the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act of 2007 since, well, long before 2007. Maybe Big Pharma's putting the brakes on it, possibly in exchange for accepting some federal oversight of their, er, irregular reporting of their drugs' harmful side effects. But we-the-people are under no obligation to bargain with Big Pharma, no matter what Congress might think. The relevant bills are S. 549 and H.R. 962, and they'd reserve critical antibiotics for human use, versus pumping them into the animals we eat, which eventually helps create a line of animals that can't survive the sniffles, as well as lines of bacteria that can't be killed by antibiotics. UCS has the contact tool.

president gas.

Senators Sanders (I-VT) and Grassley (R-IA) have proposed an interesting amendment to that Leviathan immigration bill you've heard about. Their amendment would bar corporations that lay off workers from using H-1B visas to import foreign workers on a temporary basis. The H-1B visa program exists to fill jobs that otherwise can't be filled -- but if corporations cut jobs, how can they then claim that the jobs can't be filled? This is the debate we should be having about immigration. We shouldn't be talking about the country's changing "complexion" or making up stories about how "there are no Americans to do these jobs"; we should be talking about taking care of American workers first, which is the only obligation our government can reasonably fulfill. Tools are in the upper left-hand corner for calling your Senators; I'd like to see the amendment offered as a stand-alone bill if/when the omnibus immigration bill falls apart. I'd also like to see America's nativists get a clue about how much union-busting and federal deregulation have caused the problem they whine about. Undocumented immigrants aren't the problem; they're the scapegoats -- who among the nativists wouldn't do whatever it takes to feed their families?

Hot on the heels of yesterday's MoveOn petition opposing a Congressional effort to push coal-to-liquid fuel, the Union for Concerned Scientists provides a more general contact tool in which you may express your will that coming energy/climate proposals in Congress actually make energy more efficient and renewable and actually reduce our contribution to global warming. We don't want higher fuel standards with loopholes for auto makers who "just can't" meet the standards, or a commitment to "alternative" technologies that aren't really renewable or clean. And I'm tired of hearing that making corporations do what they're supposed to do will hurt workers. Should we forever be hostage to corporations?

strange batterymates.

Senators Barack Obama (D-IL) and Jim Bunning (R-KY) team up, no, not for a game of two-cat, but for a bill aiming to promote coal-to-liquid fuel as an alternative to gasoline. The hook is that since we make lots of coal here, we won't have to buy so much Middle Eastern oil, but there's a hitch: making coal into liquid fouls the air even worse than gas. And though Senator Obama says it wouldn't work without a way to capture the greenhouse gases made by the process (and about this, he's probably overly optimistic), he's still ready to sponsor a bill that doesn't even tell coal-to-liquid producers to capture the extra gases! Don't they teach these kids anything in Sausage Making 101 anymore? To be fair, Senator Bunning has no business suggesting that people who oppose his coal-based plans "are only hurting American families stuck with costly fuel bills." As if Congress's pet subsidies for oil companies haven't already "hurt" and "stuck" American families enough. As if coal-to-liquid is the only way to wean us off Middle Eastern oil (ever heard of electric cars, hybrids, ethanol, hydrogen, stronger emissions standards, investing in public transportation, some combination of the above?). MoveOn has the petition opposing the legislation.

Who's the Mystery Senator who's placed a hold on the OPEN Government Act, which would strengthen your access to government records via Freedom of Information requests? Why, it's Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, who cites the Justice Department's "uncharacteristically strong" objection to the Act as a reason for his secret (that's right, secret) hold. That would be the same Justice Department whose head wants us to think there's no habeus corpus right in the Constitution, would it not? Bush Mobber John Cornyn is a co-sponsor of the bill, for Ford's sake! We didn't let Jon Kyl have his way on gutting the Estate Tax, and we don't have to let him have his way on this, either.

George W. Bush doesn't care a whit what you or I think, since we're not incompetent CEOs who agree with him on everything, but we're going to tell him not to pardon Scooter Libby, anyway. Scooter got 30 months in the pen for four counts of obstructing justice, which is-too a real crime, as anyone who can pronounce the words "obstructing justice" knows. I don't have high hopes for this effort -- Bush the Elder pardoned a whole slew of folks connected to Iran-Contra -- but we do the right thing because it's right, not because we have high hopes.

UPDATE. Made it so paragraph 3, sentence 2 actually makes sense now.

I think we're living in the good ole days.

I didn't even know it was Employee Free Choice Act National Call-In Week! Why isn't every week Employee Free Choice Act National Call-In Week? The Act's number is S. 1041; both my Senators support the bill, but your Senators may not, and they need to be told that the other side's main argument against the Employee Free Choice Act is a load of horsedoodle. The Employee Free Choice Act will not abrogate workers' right to a secret ballot for the purpose of forming a union -- workers who really want a secret ballot, and all the harassment and intimidation that goes with it, can simply choose not to sign cards. Presumably Wal-Mart's Ministry of Information will concentrate on that angle if the bill ever passes. Find your Senators' phone numbers using the tools in the upper left-hand corner.

The Democrats' Architekkkt, Rahm Emanuel, has promised to hear even more rank-and-file Democrats' complaints about the secret trade agreement negotiated between Tha Bush Mobb and the Baucus/Rangel Axis, since the most recent weekly caucus meeting wasn't long enough for all of them. Hopefully, he'll agree to hear them before the actual vote. Our complaints have been resonating, no thanks to the "liberal" media, which calls us idiots for imagining that a trade deal with a far-right President (sic) could be anything other than a boon for workers all over the world, though they haven't seen the agreement either. In the meantime, Public Citizen has the contact tool. I might make the letter a bit punchier -- it does go on -- not to mention more skeptical of the claim that the trade deal strengthens labor protections. We have no damn reason to think it does, just because Democrats and the "liberal" media say so.

I just can't get my shorts all in a bunch over Rupert Murdoch wanting to buy the Wall Street Journal -- though their news reporting enjoys a good reputation, the Journal's editorial page is about as far right as Fox News's signature brands, plus its prose style thinks it's so much smarter than you and I. Anyway, Mr. Murdoch probably doesn't want the Journal to do more Paris Hilton stories so much as he wants more gravitas for himself. Just so happens, though, that I oppose any news organization owning any other news organization, and so I signed TrueMajority's petition, imperfect though it is. That's at least two contact tools I've declared to be "imperfect" in the last week. That's definitely a hint.

Also, I offer my condolences to Senator Craig Thomas's family. Senator Thomas, the third-term Wyoming Republican, died Monday evening; he'd had leukemia at least since November, but his condition worsened rather suddenly over the last few days. I feel for them.

I'm your money.

Common Cause has now joined the call for Attorney General Alberto Gonazles's resignation. As you might know from yesterday's entry, Greg Palast sees the U.S. Attorney firings (in particular, the firing of Cummins and the installation of Griffin) at least in part as a way to suppress the black vote in 2008. Mr. Gonzales has been a part of that effort, and he's lied about it, and that's reason enough to call for his head -- though his pitiful defense of warrantless wiretapping is also reason enough to call for his head, and his pitiful defense of torture OK I see we could go on like this for some time. Some oppose our call for Mr. Gonzales's resignation because "the politicization of the Attorney General's office goes on under every administration," because, as we all learned as children, if someone else did something wrong too, that automatically makes that wrong thing right! And this particular politicization is particularly odious -- no, Mr. Clinton did not replace several U.S. Attorneys in the middle of his term and then lie about their performance. All right, this paragraph is too long, sorry. Here's the contact tool.

Hot on the heels of renewable energy standards passing in New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Oregon (as well as in many other states over the past several years), the Udall-Platts renewable electricity standard introduced in the U.S. House would require that 20% of all electricity come from renewable sources by 2020; Senator Bingaman (D-NM) plans to introduce a 15% standard soon. Renewable standards have had considerable support from the oddest of places in Congress (i.e. Sam Brownback), and I don't begrudge that. UCS helps you get phone numbers for your Reps. (It looks like an email tool, but it's not; you'll only be emailing UCS after you call your Reps.)

(Do I regret saying yesterday that I really don't care whether Rudy Giuliani or John Edwards is President in 2008? Not really, no. And I don't calculate the way some lefties do, that "putting a right-winger in will galvanize the progressive movement" -- how do you suppose the families of all those dead Iraqi civilians feel about that? I calculate one way and one way only: will our task as citizens be the same under either man? Yes, our task as citizens will be the same under either man. Having John Edwards as our President would make that task a little easier, but not so much so that I'll make him into something he's not. And I still don't give a hoot that he's sorry about his 2002 war vote. He should have known at least as much as I did at the time, since, you know, he was a U.S. Senator serving on the Intelligence Committee and I wasn't.)