Thieves in the Temple.

readings for the day of January 31, 2008.

Yes, Virginia, the Democrats really did filibuster the cloture vote on Mr. Bush's pet FISA legislation on Monday -- why, Arlen Specter even joined them! But, as Glenn Greenwald suggests, they didn't do it because they suddenly got a backbone or suddenly started doing the people's will. Long story short, they did it mainly because the Republicans offended them by reaching for a cloture vote too quickly -- they've all got pet amendments, some good, some bad, which they all want the Senate to vote upon. I remember castigating Senator Enzi (R-WY) during the minimum wage debate for talking about "letting the Senate work its will," versus, I don't know, the Senate doing the people's will. Obviously I don't regret the result of Senatorial arrogance in the Monday cloture vote, but I still regret the cause.

Mike Huckabee talks a good game about enacting "compassionate" social policy because it's what Jesus wants us to do, but in case you were wondering how that really happens, Michael Kazin profiles William Jennings Bryan, one of America's greatest-ever citizens, and also my homey. True, Mr. Bryan lost three Presidential elections, but you can trace most of the progressive agenda during the early 20th century to his efforts -- and I don't think it's going out on a limb to say that Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt wouldn't have been half the progressives they were if it weren't for Mr. Bryan's pushing. And here's the hard part for a generation raised on Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell: he did it because Jesus told him to. Unfortunately, most Americans now remember Mr. Bryan as the fellow who fought evolution at the Scopes trial -- and not even (as the first two commenters to Mr. Kazin's article point out) as the fellow who had every reason to fear that folks would use evolution to justify eugenics.

I don't have a positive impression of Jim "Mad Money" Cramer generally, but his recent statements at the Bucknell Forum really impress the hell out of me. Why, he called deregulation "a covert attempt to eliminate the federal government's domestic responsibilities," which of course it is. And he even spoke of "the limits of what even the best of capitalism and the marketplace can do to promote the general welfare"! Unfortunately, he also said "this is who I really am," meaning that he's whiffing a big opportunity to use his CNN persona for good. Personally, I don't think defending the general welfare and being entertaining are mutually exclusive propositions at all. And I'm sure that's not just me.

Meanwhile, I see that my oblique prediction of a Giuliani/Edwards race will not come to pass. I've never thought Mrs. Clinton's nomination was inevitable, her support being about a mile wide and a foot deep, but Mr. Obama has done better than I expected, and that pile of finance money I thought was coming Mr. Edwards's way never materialized. I found Mr. Giuliani's lousy showing more surprising, since I never thought his putatively moderate social stands would be a hindrance to him (and I still don't think they were). Obviously I overestimated the willingness of 9.11 rageheads to vote for him -- I should have realized that they, of all people, would be straining to prove how independent they are. Already I hear them saying they'll hold their nose and vote for John McCain. They probably won't think whatever happens afterwards is their fault, either.

hiding in plain sight.

The Stop Outsourcing Security Act (S. 2398 and H.R. 4102) would phase out the use of private contractors in Iraq within six months. The cynical would point out, I suppose, that America has used mercenaries of some sort for hundreds of years, but that fact does not make using mercenaries wise. I'd think anyone would recognize that charging private corporations with security matters is a bad idea -- anyone, that is, except someone desperately clinging to a war gone bad. Tools for contacting your Congressfolk are in the upper left-hand corner.

The New York Times bends over backwards, again, to be nice to Mr. Bush and his supporters, claiming that Mr. Bush's "economic climate of growth" "would be the envy of most Presidents." Most Americans, who have not enjoyed the largesse flowing from taxpayer coffers into Mr. Bush's crony corporations, would probably disagree. Mr. Bush's economic growth record would not, in fact, be the envy of any President of the last 40 years except, perhaps coincidentally, his father. Facts are facts, and they do not require the acquiescence of Bush supporters in order to be true. You may ask for a correction by emailing the Tiimes at nytnews at nytimes dot com, or calling 1.888.NYT.NEWS (or, if you're like me and you actually find mnemonic devices a hindrance when recalling phone numbers, 1.888.698.6397).

Meanwhile, the News Corporation plans to cover both the Super Bowl and the Super Tuesday Presidential primaries at the same time, on both the Fox News Channel and Fox TV affiliates. This will not be good. Pravda TV will do its best to insinuate (versus coming out and saying) that Democrats are evil, but that's not even the point. The point is that politics is not football. It doesn't matter that politics and football have in any way been intertwined at any point in American history: politics is not a game to be followed with a scorecard at home, but a process we all participate in. Anyway, I wonder if it'll backfire -- not just because the "mash-up" might seem a bit dissonant, and not just because plenty of football-loving liberals, like myself, won't appreciate it. Maybe heartland conservatives don't particularly care to be reminded of politics during the Super Bowl, either.

dead web.

Don't these damn Democrats know why they're so hated? When they give in to Tha Bush Mobb, as they're prepared to do again on warrantless wiretapping and big telecom immunity, right-wingers do not respond with, "ah, at last the Democrats get it. I will consider voting for my local Democratic politicians again." No, right-wingers react to cowardice same as anyone else: by hating the coward, and taking advantage of the coward again and again. Harry Reid will find this out in 2010 just like Tom Daschle found it out in 2004. At any rate, CREDO has a webby tool regarding FISA reauthorization. Follow up with a phone call, too. There's no need to be polite unless your Senators' names are either Dodd or Feingold. Some people have to earn politeness.

Last week we signed a CLW petition opposing a permanent U.S. presence in Iraq; this week we get to support a bill prohibiting Mr. Bush from committing to a long-term "cooperation agreement" or whatever with Iraq without first getting the approval of Congress. Shame we have to constantly re-educate Mr. Bush about his responsibilities as the Executive (sic). But we do it because we care.

Finally, just when I thought Mitt Romney couldn't get any more clueless: Mr. Romney defends his infusion of his own wealth into his campaign coffers, saying, "(e)ach of us runs our campaign the best way we know how, given, if you will, the cards we were dealt." The cards we were dealt? Apparently Mr. Romney thinks Mr. Huckabee's hardscrabble upbringing and Mr. McCain's torture by the Vietnamese to be superior hands. Worse, this shell game economy "dealt" Mr. Romney his hand, and it's an economy he helped create. Please remember to visit Mr. Romney's campaign website at nochance2008.org.

the hidden man.

CREDO (formerly Act for Change) helps you tell Senators Clinton, Obama, and McCain, all running for President, to take a stand for the Constitution and against Mr. Bush's plan to ram a bad FISA reauthorization bill through Congress. For each of these Senators, of course, this would mean stopping campaigning for a few days, long enough, hopefully, to save a nation. For the Democrats in the above list, of course, the stakes are higher -- while Sen. McCain has said little if anything about warrantless wiretapping, both Sens. Clinton and Obama have pledged to join a Chris Dodd-led filibuster against the Intelligence Committee bill. It'd be a shame if they used campaigning as an excuse not to take the biggest stand of their careers, a stand that would suggest they might actually be worthy of holding the highest office in the land.

Meanwhile of 12.01 am this morning, the top story on both hinessight.com and Yahoo!'s news page was an AP report revealing that (per the headline) "false statements preceded war." These would be "false statements" of Mr. Bush and his underlings -- given mainly during interviews, speeches, and briefings -- concerning the national security threat, such as it was, from Iraq in the two years after 9.11. No less than 935 of them, per a study conducted jointly by the Center for Public Integrity and the Fund for Independence in Journalism. Which said that Tha Bush Mobb "methodically propagated" "erroneous information," meaning not by accident. Is it good news that this is front-page news -- or bad news that it isn't front-page news until 2008, and not until midnight on a mid-January day at that?

UPDATE. "Study: False Statements Preceded War" is no longer a featured story on Yahoo!'s news page, but as of noon today it's still Yahoo!'s second most-emailed story -- behind "Cat Stowaway Makes It Home Again," of course.

like a miracle.

The Senate returns to action today, with a blank schedule, and you know what that means: they have nothing better to do all day than to hear from us about FISA Reauthorization! Say no to "basket" warrants! Say no to big telecom immunity! Say no to blanket extension of the Protect America Act, even without telecom immunity! Say no to any idiot proclaiming that we want the government to get a warrant before listening to foreign-to-foreign calls going through U.S. lines, because that's a damn lie! Warrants are for suspects, not modes of communication. Tools are, as always, in the upper left-hand corner; I bet I'll have a webby contact tool before too long, though.

Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) has introduced H.R. 5036, the Emergency Assistance for Secure Elections Act of 2008, which aims to fund state efforts to add verifiable paper ballots to their voting systems. I'll bet you already know that Sec. 2(a)(2)(G) is a loophole Tha Bush Mobb will try to drive a Diebold vote-eater through, but that also assumes that they can. Besides, we don't make laws to hamstring Executives from performing legitimate Constitutional duties (like checking the excesses of the other two branches) just because this particular Executive (sic) loves to create chaos. Common Cause helps you sign on.

Meanwhile, Danny Schecter, the News Dissector, sets me straight on the matter of a "stimulus package." Long story short: if you hand out $500 checks to lower- and middle-income folks these days, what are they going to do with them? Why, pay off some of the debt they already have, of course. Which means, right, a "stimulus package," in this age, winds up being another welfare handout to the same greedy corporations that have gotten us into this mess. So I wash my hands of it. Sometimes I gotta be reminded to play my game, not their game.

penny rants for the day of January 19, 2008.

No, I'm not a fan of the Draft Bloomberg movement either, and not merely because I don't think "a lack of civility" is the problem with American politics. I think Michael Bloomberg is the sort of man we founded America to fight -- a man who can buy his way into office. Don't care that he's pro-choice, or that they say he's a "competent manager," or that he was a Democrat during the Clinton years, or that he renounced his membership in the National Front Party last year -- money should not buy you power in America. And count me in favor of "more anti-business regulation." And also count me against the use of the word "populist" as a put-down. And definitely count me against the idea that we ought to just trust some Presidential candidate to know the difference between good and bad economic regulation. America's had enough of trusting its President to know the difference between good and bad anything.

Chris Matthews's apology addresses one sexist statement he's made recently about Hillary Clinton, rather than the vast array of sexist statements he's made about her (and others) over the years. But I find even bigger problems at the end of his second paragraph: "This program, I am proud to say, is tough, fearless, and yes, blunt. I want people to react when I say something. I don't like saying things so carefully, so politically correctly, that no one thinks they even said anything." So there's just no possibility one could ever strike a balance between bluntness and care when they speak? It's just gotta be either-or? Worse than that, however, is "I want people to react when I say something." That's everything wrong with cable news in nine words. Of course just getting a reaction from a guest is a good tactic every once in a while, but the cable news airwaves are now full of people who do nothing but try to get reactions out of other people, and it's made our national political discourse damn stupid. And, er, what "reaction" is Chris Matthews trying to get out of Republicans when he sucks up to them, which happens, like, most of the time? I'd rather Columbo was the host of Hardball.

push back.

It's a day ending in "y," so Mr. Bush must still be pushing his permanent presence in Iraq (not that he'll call it that). Here's where to push back. The recent 30,000-troop escalation has bought the U.S. occupation approximately 30,000 troops worth of extra security for Baghdad, which is neither unexpected nor something to write home about -- especially when the Iraqi defense minister thinks Iraq will need American troop help in defending its own borders for at least another ten years. Vast majorities of Americans want us out, and I insist that the phrase "the people's will" has some meaning.

NBC successfully kept Rep. Dennis Kucinich out of the January 15 debate in Las Vegas, thus ensuring that most Americans still think John Edwards is an actual liberal. Trouble is, they changed the rules for debate participation after they'd let Mr. Kucinich in. Looks bad, don't it? Looked bad to Nevada district court Judge Charles Thompson, too, who (in ruling that NBC must honor its original invitation) suggested Mr. Kucinich was "uninvited under circumstances that appear to be that they just decided to exclude him." NBC succesfully appealed that ruling to the state Supreme Court, but the court of public opinion is a higher court. You can take NBC to task about their exclusion of Mr. Kucinich by calling 212.664.4444; ask for the Comment Line. Alternately, you can email NBC at letters at msnbc.com.

McDonald's and Taco Bell have increased wages and improved working conditions for their farm workers -- you know, the ones who pick the fruits and vegetables folks have in their fast food -- but Burger King has joined with the tomato lobby in refusing a measly one penny per pound pay increase to its farm workers. The CEO may be thinking of gilding his plumbing more than all the good PR Burger King will get for doing so little. Here's the petition.

sitting at the edge of the world.

Tha Bush Mobb has expanded the NAFTA trucking program, which permits Mexico-based trucking corporations to use U.S. roads, but which does not demand that said trucking corporations follow U.S. safety regulations. I guess that would be too hard, or something. Congress defunded this program in the last appropriations bill, and Mr. Bush signed that bill into law, but Mr. Bush has gone ahead and added new carriers anyway. Like we're shocked. Here's the contact tool.

Meanwhile, Tha Bush Mobb's little Tonkin Gulf incident-wannabe didn't work out the way they hoped -- but not for lack of help from the "liberal" media, reports FAIR. It took several days for the "liberal" media, which putatively opposes Mr. Bush's very existence, to work out that the "threatening" audio and the video provided by the Pentagon were actually edited together. The "liberal" media -- which, again, hates Mr. Bush with a passion bordering on madness -- also downplayed the assessment of a high-ranking Navy official that the Iranian boats were no threat to the U.S. 5th Fleet, nor could they have been perceived as one by the U.S. 5th Fleet. Better luck next time, Georgie!

running across thin ice with tigers.

We suggested the other day that Senator Reid might back off his plan to ram Bush-style FISA reauthorization down the American people's throats, but just in case he really hasn't, we gotta be there for him. The Senate doesn't return until January 22, so we gotta be there for him early and in force. Of course by "be there for him" I mean "make him more scared of the popular will than he is of George W. Bush." Shame that it must come to that, but it must.

Incredibly, the FCC will investigate whether Comcast's selective blocking of peer-to-peer net traffic violates network neutrality principles. Of course the FCC wouldn't give a fig unless 20,000-plus good Americans (including yourself) hadn't demanded such an investigation, but that's how it's supposed to work. However, the FCC is seeking public comments on the matter, concurrent with its investigation. Maybe they're trying to get Comcastinistas to flood the tubes with pro-Comcast propaganda. If so, we can pre-empt that flood with a flood of our own. "Pre-emption" is a hot word in Washington these days, you know.

Been hearing about a "stimulus" package that could head off a recession or depression or whatever? I don't know about you, but I become afeared when I hear the word "stimulus," because I know Tha Bush Mobb is about to mutilate the word. OMB Watch reminds us that a good economic stimulus package would "quickly put money into the hands of individuals most likely to spend it." Which, right, extending Mr. Bush's tax-cuts-for-the-rich -- Mr. Bush's preferred way of "stimulating" the economy -- won't do. Betcha the "liberal" media continues to treat any tax cut for the rich as a tax cut for everyone, much as they treat any tax increase for the rich as a tax increase for everyone. Why not tell your Reps and Senators that any tax cuts should be targeted to low- and middle-income families? Why not tell your local "liberal" media outlets not to lie about who benefits from which tax cuts? Contact tools for Reps and Senators can be found in the upper left-hand corner. You can find contact info for your local "liberal" media outlets better than I can at the moment. That's a hint, and I'll work on it.

penny rants for the day of Monday, January 14, 2008.

How many ways is this David Ignatius think-piece wrong, wrong, wrong? Let's count them: one, he deduces the "inexorability" of social-change trends from singular, narrow indicators (i.e. the General Social Survey question asking whether you'd vote for a qualified black Presidential candidate). Two, he acts like there's no other way to balance budgets than to cut Social Security/Medicare/military spending (how 'bout cutting corporate welfare out of the budget like the cancer it is?). Three, John McCain is not a "born change agent"; over the course of his career he's actually been a fairly conservative (as opposed to "reactionary") fellow. Four, Presidents Reagan and Clinton didn't run into a public resistant to change so much as they ran into a) their own administrative deficiencies and b) a Congress resistant to change. You could go on counting at home if you like.

Paul Begala's piece slamming Pravda TV for incorrectly reporting his hiring by the Clinton campaign only proves how little anyone in the "liberal" media understands reporting. Put yourself in Major Garrett's shoes on Primary Day and ask yourself: does Mr. Begala's denial of my report all by itself make my report untrue? Of course not! Mr. Garrett should have reported Mr. Begala's denial, but he would have been a fool to take Mr. Begala's denial at face value -- Mr. Begala could have been practicing psyops on the press, or refusing to be presumptious in confirming his own hiring. But here's a question for Mr. Garrett: how does a story about which campaign "genius" the Clinton campaign supposedly hired qualify as a "scoop"? Funny how some announced policy initiative or other rarely qualifies as a "scoop" anymore -- or, more to the point, how some injustice committed by some corporation hardly qualifies as a scoop anymore. After all, how can the fans at home run their Fantasy 2008 Presidential Campaign drafts if the news organs actually report news?

(Hat tip to Atrios for the first item.)

number one in heaven!

Word on the street is Senator Reid won't take up FISA reauthorization again for the remainder of Mr. Bush's term, but would simply ask Congress to renew the odious Protect America Act for 18 months. The first option is undoubtedly unpalatable to Mr. Bush, since (under this scenario) he won't get his coveted telecom immunity extended. But the second option is unpalatable to the American people, since it guarantees unwarranted (literally) surveillance for another year and a half. No doubt Mr. Reid, who will lose his re-election effort in 2010, calls this compromise. But we are under no obligation to compromise with our representatives or the executive branch occupant. Call your Reps and Senators and tell them no, no, no, no! on Protect America Act renewal, and also on any FISA reauthorization that would include "basket" warrants (vs. individual warrants) or big telecom immunity.

If you're a Pennsylvania or Ohio resident, this is need-to-know: the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture has prohibited corporations from indicating that they make their milk without synthetic hormones, and Ohio may follow suit. It seems that some corporations think that the folks who refuse to put artificial hormones in their milk will have an unfair competitive advantage if they're actually permitted to advertise this fact. Then again, to some corporations, the existence of informed consumers is an offense. Consumers Union helps you talk to your Governor about it.

A pair of penny rants will follow shortly. I could have done three or four penny rants every day over the last week, what with the "liberal" media's "coverage" of the "Presidential" "campaign." But that would have just angered up the blood, trust me. And it might have prevented me from finally hearing John Foxx's 1981 album The Garden, in its entirely, plus excellent bonus tracks. (Although, thanks to Manning Krull, this is my favorite song this week.)

light posting notice, for real-for real.

Happy New Year everybody! Alas, it's time for another light posting notice. Past light posting notices (as a friend noted to me not long ago) have followed periods of relative inactivity more than they've actually preceded them. But I won't be posting again until Congress gets back. I need to detox from the internet a bit, and our-vacation-from-Congress presents a good opportunity for me to do that.

But of course I'll be liveblogging Roger Clemens's House testimony on January 16! Heh heh.