Thieves in the Temple.

well-respected men.

Having previously slammed AIG for its creative use of public bailout money, Public Citizen calls attention to outrageous executive compensation at Lehman Brothers, which is actually worse than spending taxpayer money on pedicures. The bank arranged for over $23 million in payments for three executives (two of whom were getting fired) four days before going bankrupt. I'll bet we could have used that money to fit more than 250 houses with solar power, but we'll never know now. And clearly executives don't deserve all that money because they take all that risk. The main risk they take is that if they screw up, they'll only get a few million dollars' severance. From my vantage point, that's not a risk.

Meanwhile, Warren Buffett bailed out Constellation Energy in September, but in doing so also acquired UniStar, which wants taxpayer loan guarantees to pay for four nuclear reactors in four states. Some folks are pushing nuclear power again because it can be done in the U.S. and because of its low emissions, but there are, er, safer ways to do all of that. I would rather the taxpayer subsidize solar and wind power than nuclear power, and I suspect many taxpayers would agree. Anyway, Warren Buffett is a pretty good guy, so he deserves politeness when you petition him to shut down UniStar.

In other news, Mr. Bush is trying to get his Attorney General -- whose name, as you may recall, is not-Alberto Gonzales -- to investigate as many as 200,000 Ohio voters. These would be the same voters Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner refused to challenge on the basis of the smallest database inconsistency. If you know anything about databases (and chances are in this age you do), you know that database inconsistencies are so common that no reasonable person would use them to accuse hundreds of thousands of voters of voter fraud. Mr. not-Gonzales may require prompting -- a lot of prompting -- in order to act reasonable.

light posting notice no. 87942.

This will likely be it for me for a few days, as appointments once again take up my mornings.

In the meantime, the News Dissector suggests, and I'm sure this will come as a tremendous surprise, that the worldwide financial crisis is just getting started.

penny rants for the day of October 24, 2008: "the cradle rocks above an abyss," special 2008 edition!

I wonder if reports of Mr. Obama's superior ground game (and the strange lack of same from Mr. McCain) might be overstated, in their importance if nothing else. The only real evidence we get from the above link (which admits that the ground game is an "unknown") refers to Democrats' success in "early voting," especially in Nevada. But, ah, there are problems with that -- some three quarters of absentee ballots got thrown out in 2004, according to Greg Palast, and he goes on to state (in Armed Madhouse, which you should own) that states could very well challenge any absentee ballot that doesn't present ID. I wonder how many people ran off a copy of their driver's license when they made up an absentee ballot -- or whether a copy of a license will even be good enough. Still, Mr. Obama did raise $150 million in September, and he'd be smart to use it on the ground, instead of falling prey to Thee Awesome Hypnotic Power of Teevee.

Regardless of the tricks that may yet be up their sleeve, Republicans have become quite desperate, more so than they were two years ago. Rep. Bachmann of Minnesota asked that the media do a "penetrating expose" of members of Congress to determine which "are...pro-America or anti-America," while Rep. Hayes of North Carolina claimed that "(l)iberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God." Then Rep. Kuhl said "I firmly believe the Democratic majority wants the American public to suffer and to hurt so that they can make some political gains at election time," which statement would be absolutely true if he replaced the words "Democratic majority" with the word "Republicans." Meanwhile, Sarah Palin, recently in "pro-America" country herself, has dutifully "(put) this election in God's hands, that the right thing for America will be done at the end of the day on Nov. 4." Because, as we know, when you "put it in God's hands," you always get exactly what you want! God never has a different idea for you than the one you have for yourself! It's hard out there for a pimp.

And speaking of the Republican nominee for Vice President, I guess Newt Gingrich thinks Sarah Palin is the bee's knees, as he's now defending her from "the elite media." Can't resist reminding everyone he has a Ph.D., either -- why, he compares the media's treatment of Gov. Palin to "the Polish state media's attack on Lech Walesa back in the 1980s"! He even says some of the Saturday Night Live skits were "slanderous and probably worthy of a lawsuit." Clearly Tha Newtsta is no defender of First Amendment rights when they're used to make fun of Republicans, though even Antonin Scalia agreed in 1988 that Larry Flynt had the First Amendment right to make fun of Jerry Falwell by running a parody ad in which Mr. Falwell "says" he was born in an outhouse and had sex with his mother. Perhaps Nicolas Sarkozy can enlist Tha Newtsta's services as he defends himself from voodoo dolls. It's not too early to say it: please visit Newt Gingrich's Presidential campaign website at nochance2012.org.

It's gotten so bad that even right-wingers across the Atlantic are abandoning ship! London Mayor Boris Johnson endorses Mr. Obama, and puts that marvelous British capacity for understatement on full display. But is Mr. Johnson the sort of friend Mr. Obama needs? He's a fellow who has a questionable-at-best attitude toward nonwhites (though he himself has Turkish ancestors) and has pretended gay marriage is the slippery slope it's not, which always makes me question a man's intellect. At least Mr. Johnson offers some consistency -- in one of his books he castigated Mr. Kerry for offering no hope or optimism in 2004, and he does the same to Mr. McCain now.

And speaking of racism, personal to idiots like these: if Barack Obama had been pulled over by Bull Conner, would he have only been half-beaten up? Ah, never mind: it's useless talking to idiots, particularly ones who proudly call themselves "malcontents." But that's our internet: still too many boys, not enough men.

those were the days, yes they were.

The ACLU helps you demand that the Department of Justice concentrate on real election fraud. "Real election fraud" might include "caging" lists aimed at black folks, challenges based on foreclosure lists, unlawful statewide voter purges, and misleading election information from election officials -- and not necessarily a handful of fake voter registrations handed in by unscrupulous ACORN members. It's not fair or bipartisan to demand that the DOJ devote equal attention to both. It's stupid. Hasn't Tha Bush Mobb's reign of error taught us to fight the real enemy by now?

Public Citizen joins the call for AIG to return that part of its bailout it spent at a posh California resort. Compared to the size of its bailout ($85 billion, not including the $38 billion they're also trying to get), I suppose 500 grand ain't that much. Compared to your bills, or mine, of course, it's quite a lot. Yikes, the poshest I get is a chair massage in front of the local grocery. But the heads of AIG, like the heads of most corporations, are seriously out of touch with the rest of us. Which is, of course, how they want it. That's one reason we protest -- to bring them back to earth.

Speaking of coming back to earth, Citizens for Tax Justice suggests that supply-side economics (which has dominated federal economic policy for the last quarter century-plus) is a pile of dung. Just in time for Election Day! Read the individual reports at the end of the post, too, as they provide more background. Supply-siders have, for too long, baffled the populace with, to say the least, very selective quoting of the research. But they don't have the moral arguments on their side, either -- collecting dividends on investments isn't "work" the way insulating someone's house is work.

UPDATE. Allen J. Lichtman discusses "voter fraud" -- though not Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Free Market, or the Eagles' commitment to the running game -- at the Counterpunch site.

we have a technical.

The "World Bank letter" on microfinance, which currently has 50 signers in the House, would request that the World Bank create a flexible grant facility of $200 million per year to build the capacity of microfinance institutions. A similar letter (from February 2008) had 30 signers in the Senate, and unlike so many other things so named, the World Bank letter is a bipartisan effort, as much a concern of Mike Enzi as it is of Sherrod Brown. Microlending is a big help in poorer areas of the world, and the World Bank ought to encourage it -- so much bad politics comes from their much larger loans. RESULTS helps you encourage your Rep/Senator to sign the letter.

Environment Colorado informs me that Tha Bush Mobb proposes rolling back the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule so that big corporations can do more logging and road building -- and, ultimately, more drilling -- in areas we might want to preserve for the enjoyment of hunters, fishers, campers, and hikers. Mr. Bush modified the rule shortly after taking office to permit states to designate their own roadless areas, but why do states get to tell the feds which federal lands to protect? Yeah, Mr. Bush is a conservative, all right. And now despite a federal appeals court smackdown in 2006 he's trying again -- and, perhaps not coincidentally, John McCain's all but given up on winning Colorado. Anyway, here's the contact tool; comments are due by Friday, so get crack-a-lackin'.

Finally, you may have heard a lot about ACORN lately, but not for the right reasons -- as Factcheck reports, right-wingers (including the McCain/Palin campaign) have been blowing federal investigations of ACORN way, way, way out of proportion. Essentially, a few ACORN workers may well be guilty of padding their work accounts with fake voter registrations, which isn't the same as, hypothetically of course, a public servant simultaneously serving as state campaign chair moving all the voting booths out of black neighborhoods and into white ones. But then, what are right-wingers going to do? Recall the excellent record of governance amassed by Republicans during their period of dominance? Immoral wars, a massive economic meltdown, a record national debt, a major port city left to drown, disgusting obeisance to their corporate paymasters -- it's no wonder hate is all they have left. I would like to think that hate is not enough.

"I must learn to be less terse."

Public Citizen helps you "bird-dog" your Congressional candidates on fair trade. So-called "free" trade, which we might better call corporatist trade, faces opposition across the political spectrum -- indeed, Congress permitted Mr. Bush's "fast-track" trade authority to lapse in 2007, despite the best efforts of the Democratic "leadership" -- and "free" traders' best response these days is to say that treating small producers and consumers fairly would only make everything worse. They don't put it like that, of course, but that's what they really mean.

The Federal Elections Commission did open a case file on Wal-Mart for telling its employees not to vote for Barack Obama because of his support for the Employee Free Choice Act, but they have not yet said they'll actually investigate. "Opening a case file" might be a way for the FEC to do a Columbo on Wal-Mart -- or it might be a way to make people think they're investigating Wal-Mart when they have no intention of doing so. But American Rights at Work helps you insist on an investigation.

Finally, some light reading! John McCain has proposed slashing the top capital gains tax rate in half as a way of helping the middle class, but Citizens for Tax Justice finds that Mr. McCain's plan would only benefit rich folk. No matter how much they try to sell cuts-for-the-rich as cuts-for-everybody, the facts refuse to yield. But remember: to John McCain, you're middle class if you make five million bucks a year. And remember also that almost every rich person thinks they're not rich because they know someone richer!

penny rants for the day of October 19, 2008.

Christopher "son of William F." Buckley endorses Obama, calling his endorsement "the conservative case for Obama" -- but I don't think Mr. Buckley has made a conservative case at all. Mr. Buckley's support rests entirely on Mr. Obama's "first-class temperament" and "first-class intellect" -- which qualities, of course, preclude too many liberal policy prescriptions as far as Mr. Buckley is concerned! But rather than the tautologies for which too many right-wingers settle, I'd rather see Mr. Buckley get down to cases. Does Mr. Obama share Mr. Buckley's "libertarian" sensibilities on social issues? How does Mr. Obama demonstrate a belief that the smallest community possesses the most wisdom about issues directly affecting it? What values does Mr. Obama believe are worth "conserving" and how would he go about conserving them? Someone might be able to make this case, but Mr. Buckley doesn't do it. And why does he think increased tariffs are a "liberal" policy prescription?

Is a vote for Barack Obama a vote against racism? Ron Jacobs says yes, "(d)espite (Mr. Obama's) consistent support for a system dependent on racially tinged wars and economic policies that tend to hurt non-white people and nations the most." Mr. Jacobs also suggests that the presence of a black President would attack the sort of "retrograde racism" that casts Mr. Obama as Muslim and terrorist, but he acknowledges that it would also mean that "being black does not mean that one is a revolutionary," of which we were also reminded when Mr. Bush made Rod Paige his Education Secretary (or, going back to ancient history, when President Reagan appointed Clarence Pendleton, Jr., to be Chairman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission). I'd like to be wrong about Mr. Obama, and yes, I wouldn't have expected very much of Abraham Lincoln, either. But I think it's more likely that Mr. Obama will be just another Bill Clinton once he's in office -- writing off the people's will and placating the knuckle-draggers -- and that in turn will set us up for something even more odious than Bush-Cheney in 2016 (DeMint/Inhofe, anyone?) And I think all of that would improve race relations -- but if we have a corporate-run police state by then, how much would we have won?

Meanwhile, the Politico demonstrates how the "liberal" media views "voting meltdowns." The "liberal" media cares little for fliers telling voters they can't vote if they've got traffic tickets, or voting machines that can flip voters from one side to another with less than a flick of a switch, or lists of people who've been foreclosed upon -- to the "liberal" media, a "voting meltdown" will be about all these dadgum new voters foisted upon us by that whippersnapper Barack Obama. You mean we can't handle all these people wanting to, you know, vote? Well, that couldn't be happening because of our long, long history of blocking people we don't want to vote from voting, could it? Like a baseball manager complaining about injuries a month into the season, could the "liberal" media be lining up its excuses so we'll more readily accept a President John McCain?

penny rants for the day of October 14, 2008.

You may have heard right-wingers complain about how liberals have caused (in addition to everything else!) the current housing crisis; thankfully Media Matters helps set the record straight. Long story short: most subprime loans aren't even covered by the Community Reinvestment Act; the "evidence" that undocumented immigrants hold five million mortgages doesn't exist; Barney Frank has a better record on regulation when his party's in power (not a good enough record to suit me, but certainly not the record right-wingers claim); Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac actually lost market share during the subprime boom and therefore could not be said to have caused it; the "liberal" media have overstated Mr. Obama's ties to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and, perhaps not coincidentally, understated Mr. McCain's; and ACORN did not get a "slush fund," or in fact a penny, from the recent bailout bill. And personal to those folks who still think redlining doesn't exist: have you ever talked to a real estate agent?

You know that Republican vote suppression efforts target blacks, but you may not know that they also target college students. Incredible that county officials in three geographically disparate states all came up with essentially the same scam: to insinuate that voting might invalidate your status as a dependent on your parents' IRS form. (A New York Times article suggests that, in Virginia at least, the threats were even more dire.) An official in Greenville County, South Carolina, takes it a step further: per a 1974 federal court order, a student living in a dormitory must declare an “intent to claim this locale as their home when they finish school," which sounds either misinterpreted or unconstitutional. All this because college students just don't have the good sense to vote for the guy who opposes everything they think is important!

Meanwhile, OMB Watch reports on 53 activists classified as "terrorists" in Maryland. I hate to have to point this out, but the activists found their way onto state terrorist databases during a Republican administration (that of Robert Ehrlich), whereas the current Democratic administration (of Martin O'Malley) has invited the 53 activists to review their files before purging them. Still, that doesn't mean the Democrats have purged all the unnecessary names, or even that they intend to do so. I recall what Paul Craig Roberts said not long ago: if there are so many "terrorists," how do we have so few attacks? I also recall what Princess Leia said to Darth Vader at the beginning of the original Star Wars flick, and I bet you do, too.

UPDATE. Congress is out of action until after Election Day (if not the new year) and I have appointments a couple of mornings this week, so posting will probably be light around here for a bit. Please consider patronizing any of the excellent blogs on my blogroll in the meantime.

penny rants for the day of October 11, 2008.

At last, some whistleblowers go on the record about their role in warrantless wiretapping. Right-wingers will be quick to note that the accounts "could not be independently corroborated," and they'll likely ignore the report's statement that Ms. Kinne and Mr. Faulk don't know of each other's testimony. But all that'll matter more to Americans who individually sue the government for illegally wiretapping them than to the public, who have already heard innumerable sources testify that the government generally illegally wiretaps ordinary citizens. And of course the General Hayden spokesperson's contention that nothing illegal was ever done, ever, and how dare you accuse us, is worthless. Tha Bush Mobb never believes it does anything illegal, even when it asks for immunity for big telecoms.

Meanwhile, smarty-pants Tony Blankley describes cable news "bafflement" at the market meltdown, then imagines what cable news coverage would have been like if they'd covered the Black Death. The latter item gets at less than half of what's going on, which makes it rather ineffective satire. One really ought to at least entertain the possibility that the cable news punditariat's "bafflement" is part of their plan for fleecing the rest of us, as much a part of their plan as all their thinky-think about "derivatives" and "options" and "credit swaps." And maybe the St. Valentine's Day Massacre of 1349 was the brainstorm of someone out to get the Jews, with the Black Death providing the pretext. If that had occurred to Mr. Blankley, the "bafflement" might end -- and that might be bad for business. (And, at the risk of piling on, why would a politician shaking his fist at Lehman's CEO "look" "foolish"? And how is blaming this current crisis on greed like self-flagellation?)

A newspaper chain in England replaces its editors with "senior journalists" with 31-point job descriptions. In addition to reporting, the "senior journalists" will be editing, taking pictures, making videos, designing pages, and blogging; I can't tell if item 31 reads "other duties as assigned," which was item 13 on my first bulleted job description, as I recall. Like at least one commenter, I don't see the part where the "senior journalists" are getting pay hikes for all these skills they'll be learning under duress. And, though Newsquest has only laid off 6 people so far (how can they be called "redundancies," really, if their job descriptions have been completely eliminated?), gumming up the job descriptions so that nearly everyone's responsible for nearly everything is a sure way to induce more "redundancies" in the future. Making workers miserable is no way to keep up with "changed trading conditions."

At long last, the latest Rasmussen has Al Franken pulling ahead of Norm Coleman in the Minnesota Senate race. Independent Dean Barkley (who briefly served in the U.S. Senate after Paul Wellstone's death) scores an impressive 17%; I saw a little of the Minnesota Senate debate Tuesday night, and Mr. Barkley impressed me. Speaking of debating, I think I've finally figured out why Mr. Franken hasn't run away with this race already: he just doesn't seem comfortable with telling folks what he knows (and he knows a lot). Mr. Coleman, on the other hand, seems quite at ease with lying. It might not matter in the coming weeks.

Finally, a CBS reporter threatens the Obama campaign because it doesn't "take care" of reporters like the McCain campaign does. No, really. Maybe Mr. Reynolds thinks that "what goes around comes around" is an expression of fate or God's will or whatever; I think it means the "liberal" media gives maximum sympathetic coverage to every Republican attempt to impeach Mr. Obama starting on or around January 20. And all because Mr. Obama doesn't put his schedule in book form, or because his plane smells bad. Mr. Reynolds must find it inconceivable that a candidate plying reporters with comfort and perks might be trying to buy softball questions. And he seems to think covering candidates is some sort of birthright, not a job where good works have to be earned.

(H/t News Dissector for the third item.)

heckuva job, AIG!

You probably heard that AIG execs threw a $500,000 party for themselves at a California luxury resort after Tha Bush Mobb gave it $85 billion of our money. Did AIG say, "well, it was only peanuts, really, compared to what they gave us, so that makes it all right"? I don't know. I do know that True Majority provides a petition calling for the firing of the executive who authorized the shindig and for every penny spent on the shindig to be returned to the Treasury. I hope Mr. Paulson won't be so stupid as to claim he doesn't have the authority to do that -- though, with Tha Bush Mobb, one can't go broke betting on their stupidity.

In other news, Manuel Garcia helps you avoid getting microwaved by Big Government. OK, I've been too terse: the Raytheon Corporation has been developing a microwave crowd dispersal device, to be used, no doubt, on good citizens gathering for protests against the latest monstrosity perpetrated by their government, and Mr. Garcia explains how it works and how you might defend against it. Clearly you don't have a suit of aluminized mylar in your closet, but I suspect the more enterprising among you might be able to develop a defense, once you understand the concepts (which aren't tough, even though they're, like, physics and stuff).

penny rants for the day of October 9, 2008.

The truly amazing Dana Perino seems to think that the unemployed can solve the unemployment problem by simply "getting back to work." In her world, corporations never slash jobs just to deliver bigger bonuses to their CEOs, and skilled jobs never disappear overseas -- oh, and Tha Bush Mobb didn't just intimidate Congress into passing a $700 billion bailout package for rich Wall Streeters. "(I)t’s hard to put myself in (the unemployed's) shoes because I haven’t been in that situation," she says toward the end of her answer, though no one asked her about how she felt about it and I'm going to go out on a limb and venture that nobody cared, either. But maybe she ought to go out and meet some real Americans, since in the real America not described by official statistics about 1 in 7 Americans are currently out of work.

I've found one way the "liberal" media will help keep American throats under Republican boots even with a Democratic Congress and a Democratic President. "Does Mr. Consensus make common cause with beleaguered Republicans or hunker down with his own?" Howard Fineman asks at the end of an otherwise fair analysis of how bad the next President's gonna have it. "Going your own way can work, but, as Bush's tenure has shown, not for long, and not in a way that does the country -— and the office of the presidency -— much good." But that's not what Mr. Bush's tenure has shown -- Mr. Bush's tenure has shown that when a crazy person goes his own way and only listens to other crazy people for eight years, he can ruin a country. I don't think the Republicans have earned the right to have "common cause" "made" with them, and they won't earn it back until they a) get interested in governing, versus just getting more power, and b) start listening to all their constituents, not just the rich and/or crazy ones. Prepare to hear a lot more of this if the Democrats do as well as we all think. Better listen to Republicans, the "liberal" media will say, after six years of not saying better listen to Democrats to the Republicans in power.

what's on your ballot?

The ACLU helps you oppose nefarious state ballot initiatives. Here's how it works: you read about the initiatives -- and these are mostly anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-equal opportunity for minorities -- and then send ecards to your friends in those states, alerting them to what's on their ballot and encouraging them to do something about them. Among the most evil initiatives: Arkansas tries to ban gay adoptions; South Dakota and Colorado try to ban abortions; Florida, California, and Arizona try to ban gay marriages; and Nebraska, Oregon and Colorado try to ban affirmative action. Oregon wants to mess with a whole slew of other things, too. And dig some of the names they've given to these initiatives -- the "Marriage Protection Amendment" in Florida, the "Civil Rights Initiatives" in Colorado and Nebraska. Maybe irony really is dead -- it's hard enough getting words to mean even what they're supposed to mean anymore.

In other news, Tha Bush Mobb has issued a report calling for massive tax assistance to religious schools, ostensibly to help poor children. See? They do so care! How many things are wrong with this picture? Not all poor students are religious, for one thing, nor do they belong to the Christian religions who have benefited the most from Mr. Bush's largesse. For another thing, private schools haven't demonstrated they do a better job of educating their students than public schools. For another thing, federal assistance to religious schools undermines state and local public schools -- you know, the schools that belong to all of us. For yet another thing, a voucher (always with the vouchers, these people!) does not equal full funding, nor does it equal admission -- it equals partial funding, and a school (not an applicant!) can deny an application for whatever reason it likes. And let's not forget that the federal government doesn't get to establish a state religion, no matter how subtly it tries or how many poor children it takes hostage. And that's what they're trying to do -- Mr. Bush claims only to want good religious schools to get money no matter how he feels about them personally, but surely he knows that Homeland Security can find a pretext to exclude Muslim schools. AU's executive director, the Rev. Barry Lynn, calls Tha Bush Mobb's program a "bailout for private schools that are unaccountable to the public." I'd long hoped "Bush" and "bold" would become curse words by now, but I'm pleased to see that "bailout," at least, has become nearly toxic.

penny rants for the day of October 7, 2008.

The bailout is still very much on my mind. Who could have predicted that the Dow would keep plunging after the bailout? Only those of us who thought the bailout was more Bush thievery, and "those of us" might include the rest of the world. And at the risk of sounding anti-intellectual, I honestly don't give a rat's hind quarter whether the Dow or the NASDAQ or the Sheep Entrail Index go up or down. What are the leading indicators of our economy, really? Stuff we make, stuff we sell, money we save. The stock market has very little to do with any of that these days. It's almost like that's the idea.

If I were more (or less?) spiritually enlightened, I guess I'd laugh at right-wing attempts to deduce "transparent" "liberal" "media bias" in favor of Barack Obama. That was Barack Obama getting raked over the coals for three ill-chosen words in a 2001 sermon by his spiritual adviser, right? All while John Hagee's PMS jokes went underreported? But I'm tired of arguments based on one-anecdote-if-any. Besides, ThinkProgress reports that the five biggest media outlets stand to gain a great deal from John McCain's tax cuts -- to the tune of $1.4 billion. I also recall Viacom Chairman Summer Redstone muttering out loud that Mr. Bush would be better for corporations like Viacom than John Kerry. But what do coherent arguments matter to right-wingers?

Ezra Klein compares the right-wing "An American Carol" and the putatively left-wing "Religulous," finds both wanting, at least in theory. (Full disclosure: I left a comment here; it's not all that good.) More interestingly, though: various commenters hand out beatdowns to a "Michael Malone" for asserting, in the second comment, that "a camel through the eye of a needle" means something other than what we all know it means -- that it's hard for a rich man to get into heaven. One commenter even quotes Jim Bakker -- yes, that Jim Bakker -- denouncing an interpretation similar to Mr. "Malone"'s, attributing it to "prosperity preachers." I'm starting to think the Prosperity Gospel is an even worse thing to happen to Christianity than the common interpretation of John 3:16.

You may know that Democratic challenger Jim Martin has been creeping up so steadily on Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss in the Georgia Senate race that Mr. Chambliss may not know what hit him. But I was floored to learn that South Carolina Republican incumbent Lindsey Graham's race is actually getting close. Mr. Graham's Democratic opponent is Bob "Flat-Top" Conley (guess how he got the nickname), until recently a Republican and lately a Ron Paul supporter. I dislike his stand on gay marriage, of course (other liberals will be more upset than I that he's pro-gun and pro-life), and I figure he's a Blue Dog (or worse) at heart on social spending and taxes, but he says most of the right things about Iraq, warrantless wiretapping, and trade (though he shouldn't be looking up to "Pitchfork Pat" Buchanan on illegal immigration). I'd have regretted it if Mr. Graham, still a hero to me for being the first Senator to condemn Abu Ghraib atrocities in 2004, had lost his primary to some knuckle-dragger. But I don't particularly need him to win.

UPDATE. Last paragraph removed due to a factual inaccuracy -- William Ayers did not serve jail time, and I should have known that. I apologize for the error, and I'll ensure similar errors don't happen again.

minimum wage! (whip cracks.)

American Rights at Work helps you petition the producers of American Idol to treat their workers as the law demands they treat them. I always thought reality shows were the great union-busting tool of the entertainment industry, but I thought that tool would get used mainly on writers and actors; now we learn that the virus is, er, more widespread than that. Some Idol workers report working 15-20 hour days (and, er, seven of them per week), making less than minimum wage and going without breaks for rest or meals. I guess other Idol workers call all that the price they must pay in the hope that one day they make it big in Thee Industry. I still call it against the law. Word on the street is that law enforcement might agree, as FremantleMedia (the company that produces Idol) is under investigation for these abuses. FremantleMedia made over $150 million in profits in 2007. You'd think with that kind of money they could treat their workers better, or buy a space between the two words in their name.

In other news, I understand John McCain is about to go negative. Because what else can he do? Remind us of his long-time stand against government regulation of industry? Point to his nonexistent stewardship of the recent bailout bill? Recite the handful of times in recent years he's voted against Mr. Bush's wishes? Extoll his continued, unqualified support for a war the majority of the American people don't support? Bring up his anti-insurance health insurance plan? And yet, as much as I hate to say it, negative campaigning works -- Mr. McCain will fire, and Mr. Obama will fire back, and independents who treasure their independence more than their intelligence will retaliate by staying home in droves. And, frankly, I'm not seeing Florida, Ohio, Virginia and Nevada solidly in Mr. Obama's column, either -- Republicans still control the executive branch in two of those states, and the others (Ohio, Virginia) have too many solidly Republican pockets to be counted on. Plus, Virginia has a lot of Confederate wannabes who almost delivered victory for George Allen in 2006. Plus, the "liberal" media can't be counted on to be soberer than high school students. All together now: I don't say these things to depress you. I say them so you'll be prepared.

I got yr shift in public opinion right here!

The "liberal" media seems to think public opinion has shifted on the Wall Street bailout -- without talking to members of the public, apparently. Needless to say, opinion has not shifted with this member of the public. Tools for calling your Rep (who will be voting on the bailout today) are in the upper left-hand corner of this page. If you're looking for new tacks to try on your Reps, Paul Craig Roberts tells us another couple of reasons why the bailout will fail, and then provides solutions. Long story short: Mr. Roberts thinks the bailout will ultimately ruin the U.S. Treasury's credit rating and cause a revolt among foreign investors; a better solution would be to indemnify the actual defaulting homeowners, which, in his words, is certainly no less a "moral hazard" than bailing out CEO.

In other news, some unnamed Republican Senator has apparently placed a "secret hold" on the Whistleblower Protection Act -- which, as we know, would protect federal employees from reprisals just for reporting wrongdoing, and which has already been conferenced out and would otherwise likely pass. "It is no small irony that senators are not willing to be held accountable for blocking a government accountability bill!" Public Citizen tells me, proving, again, how absurd these times are. And why does this anonymous Senator get to place a hold on this bill, when Senator Dodd wasn't permitted to place a hold on the FISA Amendments Act? Ask Harry Reid; only he knows. Anyway, you can call the Capitol switchboard at 202.224.3121 (or, you know, use the tools in the upper left-hand corner) and ask to speak to Senators Bond, Bunning, Burr, DeMint, Graham, Kyl, Roberts, Brownback, and McConnell. (I've done this before; it doesn't take as long as it seems.) Public Citizen suggests we ask if the Senator objects to the Whistleblower Protection Act, if the Senator is holding/blocking the bill, and asking the Senator to stop doing so in the event they are holding/blocking it.

UPDATE. Bailout bill passes. Just add that to the list of things I've seen over the last eight years that I won't forgive.

penny rants for the day of October 2, 2008.

Most right-wingers (not to mention most conservatives!) oppose the bailout just as much as I do, but it seems that the elite right-wingers don't. Larry Kudlow, who spends much of his time obfuscating economic matters for his viewers, made the tactical error of having Bernie Sanders on his show the other day. Sen. Sanders suggested that Mr. Kudlow, being an apostle of the "free market," must oppose the bailout, but Mr. Kudlow said that he did not oppose the bailout -- that, in fact, he supports government intervention "once every few decades, or a couple times a century." That, my friends, is the sound of a philosophy made up on the spot, and Sen. Sanders ("your version of socialism is to bail out the rich") proceeds to wipe the floor with him. It's hard out there for a pimp.

Bill O'Reilly, it turns out, also supports the bailout, and (no doubt thanks to his Harvard education) he's a little cleverer about it than Larry Kudlow. He used to write screeds about ideologues on the right and the left that contained three examples of ideologues on the left and none from the right, but here he actually unfurls this ball of bile: "I do talk radio and most of talk radio is conservative-dominated ideologues, Kool-Aid-drinking idiots -- idiots -- screaming at you..." Why, he even blames Mr. Bush and only Mr. Bush! But here's the thing: he still can't bring himself to name a single right-wing "idiot," but he's more than happy to name two Democrats -- Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd, with whom he's had a running feud -- he'd like to punch out. And he thinks Messrs. Frank and Dodd are on the far left! That is to laugh! Messrs. Frank and Dodd, who have never held corporate feet to any sort of regulatory fire, would be right-wingers by the standards we had in the seventies. Thus does Bill O'Reilly convince his remaining acolytes that he's really an independent, and thus also does he do his part to help move the American political center further rightward. I'd call it genius, if I didn't insist on genius having some actual utility.

Finally, by any objective standard, Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin is having an absolutely terrible week -- Katie Couric's Columbo act made mincemeat of her, of course, but she's even had trouble navigating issues on right-wing radio, and a number of prominent print-media right-wingers have called on her to gracefully retire. But if you're breaking open the champagne, it means you still don't understand the right-wing rank and file, who will, after all, be able to outvote Kathleen Parker. Pro-life, pro-gun, anti-terrorist Sarah is their gal! So what if she can't name a single magazine or newspaper she reads? You don't read magazines and newspapers while you're killing terrorists! And, of course, I wouldn't put it past right-wing media types to call for her ouster solely in order to cement the support of her votaries -- for Senator McCain, of course, but also against those arugula-eating, latte-drinking media types, which of course even the most right-wing among them are.

UPDATE. Minor stylistic redundancy removed from paragraph 3, sentence 3.

no complacency!

The reputable organizations who were telling me to insist on a better bailout are now telling me to forget the bailout and endorse the specific policy changes they were trying to get worked into the bailout. Well, hallelujah! United for a Fair Economy provides this short list of legislative demands you may share with your Congressfolk: reinvesting in communities and small businesses; better regulation and accountability in the financial industry; capping CEO pay; addressing the housing crisis not in terms of corporations but in terms of individuals and communities, especially communities of color; protecting any taxpayer investment. Meanwhile, Citizens for Tax Justice suggests we demand the closure of tax loopholes for capital gains and dividends. Taxing capital gains and dividends like they're income (as they in fact are) was, CTJ reminds us, President Reagan's approach. I don't know that he's spinning in his grave at how things are today, but he was right about it then. Phone numbers for your Congressfolk may be found using the tools in the upper left-hand corner of this page. You might also use True Majority's phone contact tool.

From the "danger danger Will Robinson!" file, Doug Valentine (last heard suggesting John McCain sang like a canary while he was a POW) tells us that bailout legislation failure might just be the pretext for Mr. Bush's invocation of emergency powers. (Unfortunately, you'll need to scroll down a ways.) Long story short, two May 2007 National Security Directives (NSPD-51 and HSPD-20) give Mr. Bush the power to (in Mr. Valentine's words) "assure the Continuity of the Federal Government in the event of a Catastrophic Emergency," without any consultation from Congress. And the failure of the Wall Street bailout might just be the "Catastrophic Emergency" he's looking for. Of course, this bailout is just as unpopular with his people as with mine -- maybe 90 million gun owners really might come looking for him if he tries this crap. But Mr. Bush might have his eye on another "Catastrophic Emergency" -- a possible McCain trouncing and an absolute bloodbath in the Senate -- and I say never underestimate a political animal. Now tell all your friends what I just told you -- except Dr. Smith, who'll just turn on you.

hang onto yourself.

Congress tries again today on a bailout plan; the People's Email Network still provides two toll-free numbers, 1.800.473.6711 and 1.800.828.0498. The People's Email Network also refers me to this Joseph Stiglitz article in The Nation, which contains suggestions you might share with your Congressfolk, mainly in paragraphs 8-10. Our most important duty, today, is preventing Congress from giving away hundreds of billions of dollars of our money to big corporations. Just because Mr. Bush says the economy will collapse if we don't? That's a good reason not to do it. I'm done being a hostage.

Meanwhile, insurance companies don't cover folks with mental illnesses and substance use disorders the same as folks with physical illnesses. I know, physical illnesses seem easier to quantify, and dealing with substance abuse can be frustrating for everybody involved, but none of that means these things just aren't real, or that insurance companies should discriminate against those who suffer from them. Oddly enough, both the House and Senate might agree -- but they also might let Mr. Bush's Henny Penny act about the economy distract them from passing a bill (HR 1424/S 558) that would require parity in coverage of mental and physical ailments. But that's why we're here, citizens!.

Finally, Common Cause solicits evidence of online dirty tricks. This is not like factcheck.org's request for emails that spread false information about candidates; Common Cause hunts even bigger game. Know those flyers that turn up the week before Election Day, saying Democrats have to vote on Wednesday or voters with outstanding traffic tickets can't vote? Common Cause asks, essentially, for their online equivalent -- specifically, for "emails that appear to be from the Secretary of State or other election official, advocacy organizations, or some other supposed authority that contains false information about the voting process" or emails containing a "spoofed election administrator, government or advocacy organization websites with misinformation on the voting process." People who would engage in such shenanigans ain't no friends of mine.

UPDATE. Ironically enough, the Senate has attached the bailout bill as an amendment to the aforementioned mental health parity bill. How disgusting. Tell your Senators you're on to their game using the tools in the upper left-hand corner or the toll-free numbers the People's Email Network provides.