Thieves in the Temple.

every grain of dirt is holy ground.

The Union of Concerned Scientists provides a contact tool with which to tell USDA Secretary Mike Johanns to ban the outdoor production of food crops for use in pharmaceutical and/or industrial products. Why? Because our best science suggests that genetically-engineered food crops will wind up seriously damaging our food supply. Wouldn't it be conservative to prevent corporations from trying to effect such radical change on our food supply so quickly? And to think that Mike Johanns, former governor of Nebraska, could be in the U.S. Senate right now but for the fact that he went to work for Mr. Bush in 2005. I mean, the man couldn't even think long-term about his own self-interest.

Now we normally don't bother too much with what the New York Times says, but when they're getting something dead wrong about us, then we gotta act. The Times apparently thinks that Senator Barack Obama told "anti-war activists" to stop protesting military funerals. Thing is, he didn't, and we ain't -- but Fred Phelps's Westboro Baptist Church has been protesting at military funerals for some time, because they don't like gays and they don't like "don't ask, don't tell." Read about some of the signs they're bringing to their little demonstrations, too; they're quite sick. How dare the New York Times confuse me with one of these nutjobs! And you can tell them the same by scrolling to the bottom of the above link.

Gonzales resigns.

Hallelujah!

penny rants for the day of August 19, 2007.

A CNN/Opinion Research poll indicates that, despite the "liberal" media's best efforts, a majority of Americans have already made up their minds about the coming report on Iraq "surge" "progress" -- a majority seem to think it's going to be a spin job, and a supermajority also think that it won't change their minds. Right-wingers probably look at the above-linked item and say, "oh, CNN, that liberal news organization," whereas a fellow like myself looks at the item and says, "oh, CNN, that 'liberal' news organization." We see things so differently, right-wingers and I.

Republicans rant about how social spending breaks all banks, which it doesn't, but generally (John McCain would be an exception) they avoid complaining about military waste and fraud. Long story short, a South Carolina shipping contractor stole millions by exploiting a loophole in the Defense Department's automated billing system: if an item was marked "priority" (i.e. was going to a war zone), then, in the words of one investigator, "there was no oversight." I'd thought Tha Bush Mobb fought wars for the enrichment of its cronies, but this is getting down to cases. I think this is a good argument for nationalizing the defense industry -- if a government permits this sort of graft, you can vote them out.

Posting will probably be light around here for the next week; I'll be on vacation. I won't be going anywhere special, but I've always found it difficult to blog while I'm relaxing. I know, I know, you thought it was "relax while blogging," though that's also true. Anyway, as always, thanks for reading!

the limits we set.

Americans Against Escalation in Iraq (a coalition including US Action, MoveOn, and Working Assets) wants to know if you'd like to "bird-dog" your Congressperson in order to let them know you'd like their help in getting us out of Iraq. You can sign up here to get text messages when your Congressperson will be in your vicinity. These messages will almost certainly come on very short notice, so you'll kind of be on-call if you accept this mission. Also, depending on your cell-phone plan, you may be charged for said text messages. You may have heard word that the "surge" is "working" from your friends in the "liberal" media this week -- until Tuesday's tragedy, truck-bombing had gone down since the "surge" was in full effect. That's only one indicator, though; the Sunni walkout in Iraq's Parliament earlier this month might be another.

Though the Clean Air Act requires the EPA to control pollution from ozone in a manner based solely on the best available science (i.e., and not on political, ideological, or "market-based" concerns), the EPA has instead announced a draft ozone pollution standard that falls short, even, of what the EPA's own scientists and science advisors consider safe. But then the Clean Air Act is only a law, and if a law interferes with the ability of a corporation to make unearned profits, it's the executive branch's job to disregard that law -- so sayeth the governing (sic) philosophy of George W. Bush, as discernable from his actions. Unfortunately for the EPA, it still must accept public comments on its drafts, and Union for Concerned Scientists helps you leave a comment. It'll probably take until the Presidency of George P. Bush before the executive branch finally gets rid of that dang public commenting process, but enjoy it while you can.

UCS also provides a petition in which you may call for fast-food manufacturers to stop using meat from animals raised on antibiotics. These fast-food companies (like Tyson Foods, which is moving away from antibiotics in its own chicken) are big companies; stands to reason they could spend a little money making better food, don't you think? And America now uses 70 percent of its antibiotics in raising animals, which seems a little backward, doesn't it? Pumping antibiotics into animals also makes for weak generations of animals, and stronger generations of bacteria, which couldn't be turned back by antibiotics if they attacked humans. This is not "anti-antibiotic" by any means -- call it "wise use" of antibiotics, if you like. And yes, it'd be easy for us to say "we shouldn't be telling fast-food companies what to do at all, but boycotting them and telling other people to boycott them," but since we're going to be stuck with fast-food manufacturers for the foreseeable future, we might as well try to bind them into society a little more tightly.

UPDATE. And, according to this McClatchy report, government figures claiming a decrease in Iraqi civilian deaths are suspect. (Hat tip Atrios.)

our world's out of order.

Missed any opportunities to yell at Congress for reauthorizing Mr. Bush's warrantless wiretapping program in clear violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution? Well, the Electronic Freedom Foundation and the ACLU have new contact tools. You may be surprised to learn that AT&T actually filed an amicus brief opposing warrantless wiretapping of telephone lines in a '20s Supreme Court case. Now some benighted souls, upon learning this fact, will spew something nasty about me living in a pre-9.11 world or something. But that case was not too long after the infamous "Red Scare" and the Palmer raids. And yet AT&T still found the courage to speak out. Today, big as they are, they come up small when it counts.

I notice, incidentally, that Mr. Cheney still bleats about air strikes on Iran. Congress is off this month, you know, so this is the month we hear all the rumors, and this is the month we repeat all the rumors in an attempt to prevent the rumors from becoming reality.

Rove resigns, effective end of August.

Hallelujah!

I've buried him already. More than once, in fact. Doing it again would only anger up the blood.

penny rants for the day of August 12, 2007.

David Sirota suggests that Democrats introduce legislation proposing to remove National Guard troops from Iraq and put them at northern and southern U.S. borders so they can catch illegal immigrants. (Also, in this proposal, some National Guard troops could go to forest fire emergency zones.) This proposal would not only give National Guard troops National Guard-type duties for once, but it would force the "Tom Tancredo wing of the Republican Party" to choose between the Iraq war and border security, and a real debate over these matters would, hopefully, ensue. But his calculus is missing one piece: the "liberal" media pundits who'd immediately slam the Democrats for "playing politics" with two issues at once. They'd be stopped-clock right about that, except that they never slam the Republicans for "playing politics" even though Republicans do so approximately every time they draw breath. Still, Democrats ought to try it, because Americans need to take the pundit class on as much as we need to take the Republicans on.

I hope nobody tells Mitt Romney about this one: an Indianapolis-based hospital system decides to penalize workers for bad health. Clarian Health proposes to start fining workers $10 per paycheck for failing to meet a BMI (body mass index) target, and $5 for smoking, or for failing to meet targets in cholesterol, blood pressure, and glucose levels. A good conservative (versus the bad ones who get all the TV time these days) might say workers' health is none of their employer's business as long as workers ain't hurting no one, and a good liberal (ditto) might argue that "rising health care costs" is not an example of a sick person hurting someone, since we could deal with rising health care costs in other ways -- like, with single-payer health care. I'm also looking around my own job and seeing many hard workers getting fined even though they produce. We could go on about this, but how about we get rid of all the soda machines at work instead? You think people would drink so much of that stuff if they weren't bored and if it weren't sitting by every wall?

The New Republic's Eric Rauchway writes that liberals are mistaken to esteem former five-term Arizona Senator Barry "Mr. Conservative" Goldwater so highly. It's just a phase we liberals go through, Mr. Rauchway, because we're trying to remember what a conservative is supposed to be, because today's conservatives resemble fascists. Has the New Republic noticed that today's conservatives resemble fascists? Read the entire article (only once, though, because it inexplicably starts over midway through), and then read through the comments, because many of them are pretty good (except the ones that blame "Indian interns" for the article inexplicably starting over midway through).

fury from the deep.

Both the Electronic Freedom Foundation and MoveOn present contact tools opposing Congress's recent reauthorization of Mr. Bush's warrantless wiretapping program. (MoveOn's contact tool is actually a petition.) If you're looking for inspiration as to what to tell your cowardly Congressperson, look no further than The Onion. Congress actually called that steaming pile of dung the "Protect America Act." And Democrats will still think the reason they only pick up half a dozen Senate seats in 2008 is that they're not enough like Harold Ford. Whatever their next move might be, their names now occupy the annals of infamy.

The FCC will decide soon whether to approve the sale of Verizon's landlines in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont to FairPoint Communications. Terrific, you say, that Verizon wants out of three states? Well, the problem is the company they want to sell to -- FairPoint, based in North Carolina, will have to add almost $2 billion in debt and will watch its access lines increase sixfold and its employees increase over threefold. Starting to sound like a recipe for disaster? Some say that Verizon ought to have the right to sell its property to whomever it likes, as long as they don't break laws. But some are cruel and heartless and would feel a bit abandoned, I think, if they were in an otherwise underserved rural area and their phone line (or cable line) were on the fritz and the company maintaining the lines were trying-their-best-but. In other words, the rights of corporations to manage and dispose of property must bow before the public they serve. Unionvoice provides the petition.

Creators Syndicate has hired David Sirota to write a nationally syndicated weekly newspaper column, and maybe you'd like your local newspaper to carry it. You know, to balance out all that Bill O'Reilly and Michelle Malkin. Carrying David Sirota (whose Working Assets blog can be accessed via my very own blogroll, on the right) wouldn't be like adding One More Liberal to the editorial pages. First, you don't find that many liberal columnists in the papers anymore. Second, Mr. Sirota lives in the midwest and keenly observes midwestern populism, which you might have thought died out or something. In other words, this is a niche, a hook, call it what you will. I bet you can get contact information for your local newspapers better than I can. When you do contact your local paper, be polite and respectful, this once, and if you're stumped for what to say, Creators Syndicate has posted a short bio of Mr. Sirota, which also links to a handful of his recent columns.

(Hat tip to Idiozeitgeist for that Onion link.)

penny rants for the day of August 5, 2007.

What part of "warrantless" does Congress not frickin' get? I guess we're supposed to be grateful that Congress only extended Mr. Bush's warrantless wiretapping program for six months, but I'm such a bastard I only care that they don't destroy our Constitution. And they've had eighteen months to get it right. Do Democrats suppose they recaptured Congress in 2006 in spite of the revelation that Mr. Bush urinated all over the Fourth Amendment? And in re Kit Bond's statement in paragraph 20: does he really believe that the only alternative to continuing to urinate all over the Fourth Amendment is that our intelligence agencies will be "deaf"? If he thinks so, then the terrorists have already won. Congress -- what a stupid thing to have faith in.

Meanwhile, this is how it ends with John McCain: by embracing a borders-only approach to illegal immigration, he's given up the last of those half-dozen positions that used to make him John McCain. Maybe in doing so, he's now free to be reborn as Reagandroid in time for the 2008 primaries, what with Rudy Giuliani a clear but unloved front-runner and Fred Thompson getting to the show slower than Lou Reed in Get Crazy and Mitt Romney being Mitt Romney, but I doubt it. And I don't feel sorry for John McCain. He made his bed, and, thankfully, he's lying in it by his damn self. Republican "mavericks" -- what a stupid thing to have faith in.

UPDATE. "Penny rants for the day of August 5, 2007" originally appears to have debuted on August 4. I was acutely aware of what day it was when I posted it, but I mismanaged that West Coast time-thing again. Error now corrected.

fourth and goal from the 1.

Congress wants to go home today, Mr. Bush wants Congress to help him spy on you and I without warrants, and we want Congress to go home today without helping Mr. Bush spy on you and I without warrants. ActforChange has one contact tool, and the ACLU has another. Sometimes your Reps and Senators need you to put the steel in their spine. This is one of those times. And don't be frightened by all Tha Bush Mobb's hints that summer is a good time for a terrorist attack. They could have stopped 9.11, with warrants, with the intelligence they already had, and they failed. And I wouldn't put it past them to fail again. Tha Bush Mobb is really bad at governing, you see, and I think they don't care that they're really bad at governing.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) plans to filibuster the nomination of former Congressman Jim Nussle to White House budget director. Apparently, Senator Sanders found it somewhat incongruous that Mr. Nussle thinks expanding uninsured children's health care via SCHIP reauthorization is a bad idea, while repealing the inheritance tax and thus giving the Walton family some $30 billion in tax breaks is a good idea. Tha Bush Mobb wants Harry Reid to schedule a vote on Mr. Nussle immediately, but I'm tired of more class warfare. And by "class warfare" I mean what the elites do to us every day, and not me pointing out what the elites do to us every day. Tha Bush Mobb wants Senator Reid to schedule a vote on Mr. Nussle's nomination today; you can tell Harry Reid not to schedule that hearing by calling 202.224.3542. You'll hear his voice at first, but it's not really him; it's a recording. Press 1 to speak to a staffer.

readings for the day of August 2, 2007.

Bob Novak suggests that Tha Bush Mobb has begun a campaign, in concert with Turkey, to suppress Kurdish guerillas. The ultimate aim? For the Turks, to prevent a nationalist Kurdistan movement which would encroach upon Turkey; for the U.S., to prevent Turkey from invading Iraq to prevent a nationalist Kurdistan movement which would encroach upon Turkey. Trouble is, the Kurdish guerillas have the support of the Kurdish regional government, which in Mr. Novak's words is "our best ally in Iraq." So, as the Rolling Stones might say, we're between a rock! And a hard place. I didn't imagine this exact conundrum would occur because Mr. Bush invaded Iraq any more than George Washington did, but I'm not surprised, and I'll bet he wouldn't be surprised, either. And, though Bush Mobber Eric Edelman said he was "confident" the U.S.'s role "could be concealed," well, it's just been written about for at least the second time.

The USDA has apparently sent over $1 billion in farm subsidies to dead farm owners, as identity thieves all over America slap their foreheads. It gets better: a lot of these subsidies went to -- surprise! -- corporate-owned farms, and a lot of these checks exceeded USDA annual allotments. The GAO study referenced above, requested by Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA), suggests "lax regulatory oversight" as a primary cause of the overpayments -- apparently, the USDA, in some cases, didn't even check Social Security numbers across databases. It must be easy to work in a Bush Mobb government, because you don't ever have to do anything right.

Highlights from the latest Citizens for Tax Justice July 27 Tax Justice Digest, a.k.a. the "See You in September" issue, include: Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) aiming to cut the Alternative Minimum Tax without making up the lost revenue; Sens. Baucus and Grassley (it must be Chuck Grassley Day!) becoming mildly interested in rectifying that private equity tax loophole I talked about a few days ago; and the possibility of the national corporate tax rate going down if enforcement of tax laws gets better. I know, I know, it sounds so damn sexy when I talk about taxes. But I think it's damn edifying reading. So there. Read it all.

"I want you to hurt like I do."

I don't know about you, but I'm getting the feeling Congress wants to go home so badly they'll cave to Mr. Bush on everything of consequence this week. I want them to go home, too -- hell, I want them to stay home. But if they're going to be abject cowards, I want them to stay in session until they grow a new spine. In that spirit, let's tell Congress, one more once, not to give in to Mr. Bush's demands to gut the FISA law. Mr. Bush calls his proposal "modernization," as if the FISA law hasn't been updated over 50 freakin' times since 1978. If Mr. Bush can't get a warrant, even with the three-day head start the FISA law gives him, then he must be the most incompetent terrorist hunter ever. Or he's spying on you and I. I had enough of the fear stick in 2002. It's time Tha Bush Mobb felt the fear stick of the people, as the founders intended.

Congress could adjourn for August without impeaching Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, I suppose, because then he'd twist in the wind for a month. But my concerns are not strategic; impeaching Mr. Gonzales is either right or it's wrong, and I think it's right. Common Cause has the contact tool. Now we're supposed to believe that Mr. Gonzales didn't actually lie, per se, when he said the infamous powwow in John Ashcroft's hospital room in 2004 wasn't about the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" -- because the program had a different name back then, like the "Bad Guy Looking-at Thing We Do," or something. I hope anyone who cheered on the hunt of Bill Clinton has the courage to do the right thing now.