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.