Thieves in the Temple.

up around the bend.

The Pentagon issued a report this week stating that the Guantánamo Bay detention center meets Geneva Convention standards, which (to say the least) seems absurd. Haven't we learned by now not to trust the Executive branch to tell us how well the Executive branch is doing? The ACLU helps you demand that the Obama Administration grant human rights groups access to Guantánamo -- because, you know, we might believe a more independent assessment. Mr. Obama might tell us he's reluctant to let such groups in because he plans to close Guantánamo within 12 months anyway. Key word in that sentence? "Plans." No Executive, of any party, gives up newly-acquired Executive "powers" very easily.

The Union for Concerned Scientists assists you in demanding further climate change action from Congress. I look at UCS's list of demands and I don't see a cap-and-trade system, in which corporations that pollute less than they're allowed can "sell" their "credit" to corporations that pollute more than they're allowed. I recall, also, that Mr. Obama called upon Congress to pass a cap-and-trade system on Tuesday night. I'm not a big fan of cap-and-trade -- I think old-fashioned regulation, with old-fashioned penalties, works pretty well. Of course I'd take a company's actual size (and thus ability to pay) into account when assessing a penalty, but I'm quite irritated that a Democratic administration hesitates to punish corporations after all they've done over the last eight years. Worse, I'm quite irritated that nominal "conservatives" are far less strident in punishing corporations for their sins.

I have a pair of alerts from Consumers Union. In one, they help you demand immediate credit card reform. The Fed cracked down on credit card rate hikes, but the rules don't go into effect for another year and a half, and in the meantime credit card companies are hiking their rates while themselves paying just about no interest on overnight loans. What a racket! The other alert helps you demand that the FDA inspect food production plants every year. The source of that Peanut Corp.-related salmonella outbreak might have been a leaky, pigeon-infested roof, which might be amusing if nine people weren't dead and 6,000 more weren't seriously ill. And that roof? Like the rest of the plant, not inspected by the FDA since 2001. Perhaps not coincidentally, Mr. Bush assumed power that year.

Finally, Dave Lindorff finds Mr. Obama's address to Congress on Tuesday night wanting -- and, not content to be negative, he makes dozens of suggestions that I'm a bit ashamed I didn't think of. Sometimes I wonder if Mr. Obama is playing a possum game, in avoiding direct challenges to the corporate establishment now so that they won't see what hits them later. But he might also just be a centrist. And anyway, it's not my job as a citizen to fantasize about how great things could be down the line. This is my job: tell Mr. Obama that he's not hitting the corporate establishment hard enough now, and demand that he hit harder.

UPDATE. An alert reader points me to Glenn Greenwald's recent report comparing the Pentagon's self-examination, so to speak, with a Guardian report stating that Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed was beaten right up until his release this past Saturday.

fat Thursday.

"Are you sick of hearing the same talk radio blowhards and cookie-cutter music on the radio in Philadelphia?" Free Press asks me in an email. Why yes, as it happens, I do hear the same 80-plus songs on the radio every day at work, and Philly's Big Talkers are all right-wing blowhards. Perhaps not coincidentally, Reps. Doyle (D-PA) and Terry (R-NE) have introduced H.R. 1147, the Local Community Radio Act of 2009. H.R. 1147 (like its ancestor from previous Congresses) would promote the growth of Low-Power FM stations by essentially eliminating the minimum distance separation requirement between big FM stations and LPFM stations -- you know, since LPFM stations don't interfere with big telecom stations, no matter what the big telecom stations tell you. As with many of the media reform initiatives I pass along, H.R. 1147 is actually bipartisan -- both liberals and conservatives think more local radio is a wonderful way to pass along their ideas, promote local news and events, and serve communities. So let's have at it!

CREDO provides a contact tool with which you may tell over 20 energy CEOs to shift away from building coal plants and shift toward clean and renewable energy sources such as solar and wind. I've heard reasonable people tell me that America's got a lot of coal and we're going to have to tap it to get off foreign oil, but I just don't agree -- making coal rips up the land and fouls the air, and renewable energy sources have come along much further than the "liberal" media wants us to believe. Also, on Monday, CREDO will be holding a mass civil-disobedience rally in Washington, D.C. in front of the coal-fired power plant that powers Congress. They've asked that you come in dress clothes, just as civil rights protestors used to march in their "Sunday best." I think that's a wonderful idea -- don't give your enemies any ammunition if you don't have to, that's what I say.

The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network still provides a petition whereby you may ask Defense Secretary Gates (the artist formerly known here as not-Don Rumsfeld) that gays be allowed to serve openly in the Armed Forces. I mean, two wars have kinda stretched us a bit thin -- previously the Pentagon started letting in folks with medical conditions and criminal records, and now they've begun a program to recruit 1,000 temporary immigrants with the promise of eventual citizenship. In 2007 alone, the armed forces kicked out almost two-thirds that many folks under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," and (as 60 Minutes suggested in 2007) they could've kicked more out. Maybe Mr. Bush figured out what Mitt Romney couldn't: that you can't fight two wars and be a bigot at the same time. (Also, the SLDN plans a "Freedom to Serve" rally on the Capitol grounds for March 13; more info here.)

Finally, the Organic Consumers Association helps you ask Florida Governor Crist to address farmworker abuse in Florida more aggressively. Florida farmworkers work like dogs, make less than minimum wage, and can't unionize -- plus the Department of Justice has prosecuted seven cases (involving over 1,000 workers) of wage slavery in the last ten years. In the most recent, even Tha Bush Mobb's DoJ found tomato pickers being beaten, robbed, chained to poles, and locked inside trucks at night. Mr. Crist's spokesperson demonstrated supernatural stupidity when asked about it by reporters, but I think Charlie Crist is a better man than that, so try to be polite when you write him.

another no-post post.

I've one alert in the inbox, no penny rants warm, and work later, so I won't have anything important to say today.

In the meantime, I've been meaning to share this and this, because they're damn funny. I don't know why I only seem to link to Manning Krull in the early winter months, because he's damn funny all year round.

surprise, pimps! it's penny rants for the day of February 24, 2009.

This Rick Santelli comes off like three kinds of jerk, and perhaps not coincidentally he's been on cable news networks pretty much nonstop lately. Here he willfully misinterprets a statement by Robert Gibbs about "where he lives" as a threat to his being -- and then, amazingly, maybe because he's on noted Hard Guy G. Gordon Liddy's show, he says that "I really am very proud of a) the response I’m getting, which is overwhelmingly positive, and b) discourse, that is debate...if the pressure and the heat I’m taking from the White House – the fact my kids are nervous to go to school – I can take that, okay." Wow, what a great dad -- no word on whether the kids can "take it." I suppose if Rick Santelli were King Solomon, he'd be saying, "go ahead, cut the kid in half -- it's the price we pay for advancing discourse in this great kingdom."

NBC's Chuck Todd apparently reveals why Chris Matthews didn't run for the Senate: because Mr. Matthews talked to a friend of his and couldn't answer the question "what are you going to do when you get there?" The stunning thing isn't that Chris Matthews didn't know what he'd do as a Senator -- this little Damascus moment actually makes me like him a little better -- but that neither Chuck Todd nor anyone giving this story any play knows, either. The answer to the question "what are you going to do when you get there?" is pretty simple: you are going to represent the will of the citizens of Pennsylvania. Sometimes I feel like Buck Rogers in the TV episode "Mark of the Saurian." So do many Americans, I'd think, whether they watched Buck Rogers as a kid or not.

Josh Silver at Huffington Post describes an exchange between Wolf Blitzer and Senator Orrin Hatch that (also) demonstrates everything that's wrong with cable news these days. Senator Hatch gets to spread the myth that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are to blame for the current economic crisis, and Wolf Blitzer, wise CNN oldhead, says nothing. Mr. Silver suggests that Mr. Blitzer just brainlessly went on to the next question, but I don't think so -- I think Mr. Blitzer figured he just got a balanced report from Senator Hatch because Mr. Hatch blamed Wall Street, too. Shame I don't care so much about these false notions of "balance" as I do about getting the facts straight, or at least having a more vigorous debate about the facts. I guess I'm just very conservative that way.

ever-present past.

TrueMajority would like us to demand that the government cut Pentagon programs that don't work. I expected to find something in the petition I disagreed with, but I don't -- in fact, I don't think anyone agrees that we should be funding "pork-barrel weapons projects which only exist to pay off defense industry lobbyists." Indeed, I'll bet some folk would refuse to sign such a petition because it doesn't demand specific cuts and settles for stating the obvious. To them I say, one step at a time -- we've just suffered under an Administration (sic) and a "liberal" media which did nothing but deny the obvious for eight years.

Common Cause provides a toll-free number, 1.888.999.6775, with which you may call to demand that the 600,000 inhabitants of Washington, D.C. get a voting House Rep. The relevant bill is S. 160, and the cloture vote is today. Republicans in the Senate (still 41 of them!) might filibuster the bill, in order to stop a (get ready for this) "raw power grab" by the Democrats. Yup, them durn Democrats, trying to get themselves one more House seat, that's an awful big grab. Except that it's not -- S. 160 actually provides, in Sec. 3 (c) (2), for two additional Reps, one in D.C. and one in the state of Utah. And if the Republicans can't hold an extra House seat in Utah, they might want to consider merging with the Minnesota North Stars.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post has now waited nine days to issue the numerous corrections necessary to George Will's February 15 column expressing skepticism about global warming. Brad Johnson at the Wonk Room details the problems with Mr. Will's column here (it's only five pages; it won't take long to read, and if you've been keeping tabs on the controversy it'll probably all sound familiar to you). Media Matters provides the action tool. Act quick now, before George Will throws a "tantrum."

Finally, Sen. Bunning apologizes for remarks suggesting they'll get another conservative judge on the Supreme Court since Ruth Bader Ginsburg will be dead within nine months. Given that Justice Ginsburg's cancer has not spread and she's back to work already, I'm tempted to say Mr. Bunning is just as good a cancer doctor as Mr. Frist was a neurologist. But if Mr. Bunning thought Justice Ginsburg would be replaced by a right-winger, then he didn't do the math. Here's the math: count to 41, then subtract Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, who can serve as Republicans from Maine as long as they want, and maybe even subtract Arlen Specter, who's up in 2010, has put his finger to the wind, and (most importantly!) has Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, and 58-plus Democrats to cover all the maverick moves he's been too chicken to try for the last 28 years. That leaves 38 votes for a filibuster, which generally ain't enough, unless some Democrats decide not to show for work on a day a Supreme Court nominee gets a vote. And that is the only hope of getting a Roberts/Alito clone out of Mr. Obama -- and to hear such talk, just four short years after Mr. Bunning and his ilk whined about Democrats filibustering William Haynes and his kind to lower courts! It boggles the mind. After a moment of lucidity complaining about the Fed's role in the current economic crisis, Mr. Bunning kept going like an Energizer bunny on meth, implying that RSCC Chair John Cornyn would rather direct funds toward Arlen Specter and Olympia Snowe (who's not up until 2012 and doesn't need the help) than toward "conservatives" like himself and David "serious sin" Vitter and Jim "no single mothers teaching public school" DeMint. Maybe John Cornyn has put his finger to the wind, too -- maybe he even dreams, one day, of being called a moderate himself. Hell, if Barry Goldwater and Bob Dole could be the Republicans' liberal wing by 1996, anything's possible.

penny rants for the day of February 23, 2009: swing, mighty italics hammer, swing!

The Wall Street Journal covers 30-second foreclosure hearings in Lee County in Florida -- in such a way as to give cable news punditoids "reasons" to oppose mortgage cram-down legislation (which Mr. Obama has folded into his own mortgage relief plan). I certainly wouldn't take what happens in one county in one state as a template for what's going to happen all over the country -- and that's before I get to the extenuating circumstances in Lee County (state law requiring judges to sign off on foreclosures, an abnormally high percentage of speculators, a get-rich-quick house-flipping operation nearby). I'm shocked by how many ledes this story buries -- but I'm not shocked that the story leads with anecdote about someone who couldn't get a hearing longer than a half-minute. I see this sort of thing in newspapers all the time, and there's a problem with it: it's a fiction-writing technique, not a journalistic one. I'm sure the newspaper crowd will whine that their declining readerships won't find their stories exciting enough if they put all the facts you need to know at the beginning. Well, I guess I'm just very conservative that way. Also, I do not find the truth boring. Also, newspapers have declining readerships largely because they do a bad job reporting the news. Let me know if I'm piling on.

Meanwhile, that blasted Sean Hannity "covers" the relationship between some 90-plus former or current House members and the PMA Group, and makes like it's only Democrats in this relationship. First Hannity gives us a shot of John Murtha -- the bitter enemy of right-wingers since 2005, when he not only came out against the Iraq war, but actually fought back when told he had "no backbone" by noted Vietnam-era invertebrate Dick Cheney -- and then gives us three shots of Democratic Congressmen and how much the PMA Group allegedly donated to them, and then he says, of his four mug shots, "they're all Democrats!" Now the Media Matters clip does cut off abruptly, so maybe he does go on to mention that a few Republicans were involved, though, actually, more than a few Republicans were involved: 44 out of 91, or very nearly half. But here's the important part: he didn't show you any pictures of Republicans. And he didn't put scare numbers on a TV screen next to any pictures of Republicans. Look, I don't mind going after Democrats for corruption. I do mind Republican "journalists" pretending corruption is a Democratic affliction, as opposed to a human one. I also mind Sean Hannity pretending he's fair to both sides because he throws meat to one side and crumbs to the other.

After Attorney General Holder's unexpectedly blunt comments about America's failure to discuss race openly, Rush Limbaugh opines that he's no coward on talking about race, and to buttress his argument, he talks about that time he said the media gave Eagles QB Donovan McNabb too much credit for his team's success because they wanted a black quarterback to succeed. Yeah, that's where I'd run to make my argument that I'm not a "coward" about race. Mr. Limbaugh obviously didn't watch Mr. McNabb at all in 2000, when he led his team to the playoffs despite handing off to Darnell Autry and throwing to Charles Johnson and Torrance Small, nor, apparently, did he witness the Philadelphia sports media's repeated criticisms of Mr. McNabb's inaccuracy before he ever weighed in. Sometimes, when a man is tempted to say the things no one else will say, he needs to have the courage to ask if the reason no one else will say those things is because those things are stupid.

UPDATE. 19 posts this month so far! Yikes, you'd think the Republicans were controlling things again.

readings for the day of February 21, 2009.

Rory O'Connor of MediaChannel becomes the first person I know of to describe business reporters as "embedded" with Wall Street. That's a devastating indictment, and to no one's surprise it's an indictment the press largely doesn't share. Don't they start with the Man in the Mirror? For years now I've been reading pieces from Mike Whitney and Danny Schechter and others describing how unstable and unsustainable the economy would become. I didn't share as many of them as I should have, obviously, because Mr. O'Connor provides an even longer list of folks who got it right years before they had to. We're facing a much larger problem, of course: the handful of media conglomerates that own everything are big businesses themselves, and they own (or are owned by ) many other big businesses, and thus hardly predisposed to report honestly and accurately on big business.

I was instantly attracted to this Media Matters report by its title: "In Support of Shunning." It turns out to be a withering deconstruction of George Will's many crimes against truth over the years (not just the most recent ones concerning global warming, which the Washington Post has made no effort to correct). My favorite anecdote comes from Noam Chomsky, in which a George Will column appearing in Newsweek contains a factual inaccuracy contradicted by another, older report by, you guessed it, Newsweek, and Newsweek never runs a retraction because George Will has a "tantrum." That's our "adult" and "civil" "liberal" media, folks -- no better-behaved than babies, and nowhere near as charming.

all the umbrellas in London.

Hot on the heels of an unexpected Obama Administration defense of a nefarious Bush Mobb practice, Sen. Leahy has reintroduced the State Secrets Protection Act in the Senate; its co-sponsors are Sens. Feingold, Kennedy, McCaskill, Specter, Tester, and Whitehouse. The bill would require an independent court to evaluate a government's "state secrets" claim, and would set a very high bar for dismissal of cases on the grounds of the state secrets privilege. It would also, perhaps not incidentally, make it just about impossible for the executive branch to "run out the clock" by denying security clearances to attorneys working on national security cases -- Tha Bush Mobb was pretty good at finding loopholes just like that. Yes, it's true: they were good at something other than simply causing other people pain and hardship. Anyway, I think the Founders would be quite proud of this bill -- the Founders feared a concentration of Executive power more than their descendants, obviously. The ACLU helps you gin up support from your House Rep (I believe Rep. Nadler, Democrat of New York, has introduced the companion bill in the House).

Was I a bit obtuse about Afghanistan yesterday? OK, then, here's what should have happened in 2001: the Bush Administration (sic) should have determined that the government of Afghanistan was harboring al-Qaeda operatives responsible for the 9.11 attacks (easy enough), then requested that said government produce said operatives or collaborate with the U.S. to capture them. If that failed, the U.S. should have petitioned other nearby governments (Pakistan, for one) to put pressure on the government of Afghanistan toward that same end, and then, if all else failed, invaded Afghanistan -- again, with the main goal of capturing the al-Qaeda operatives responsible for the 9.11 attacks. What Mr. Bush did in Afghanistan wasn't that, of course; he demonstrated more statecraft in Afghanistan than he did in Iraq, but that's not a real high bar to clear. So we're now in a quagmire over there, too, but Mr. Obama seems determined to actually "win" the no-win situation that Mr. Bush handed him. The people might well get behind him on that, but not if he screws it up. CREDO helps you press Mr. Obama not to screw it up -- you know, by thinking "more troops" is the only solution to the problem. I think it is a solution -- certainly a better one than robot planes bombing civilians, which is as unpopular as it is ineffective -- but it is far from being the only solution. And, right-wingers: exit strategies aren't a sign of weakness. Thinking an exit strategy is a sign of weakness is a sign of weakness.

UPDATE. Clause removed from the end of the next-to-last sentence in paragraph 1, because it was, like, totally unclear.

don't call it a comeback!

Public Citizen helps you demand strong restrictions on executive pay in companies receiving TARP (a.k.a. bailout) money. Mr. Obama announced he would implement such restrictions a few weeks back (which is his prerogative, per the TARP legislation), but Mr. Geithner, who counts many CEOs among his BFFs, has a year to develop said regulations that would implement the restrictions -- which, whaddaya know, have loopholes anyway and aren't as strong as those pay restrictions already issued by Congress, which themselves aren't very draconian. The wheels of government do grind slowly indeed, but it's our government, so we can, and must, demand better.

Peace Action West provides a petition demanding that Mr. Obama actually come up with a plan for Afghanistan that's not solely dependent on sending more troops into the grinder. No, it's not important to keep the plan from the American people so the terrorists don't find it out. Remember how many people died on 9.11? Well, from the end of 2001 to the end of 2007, over 80 times as many people died in car crashes in the U.S. And the RAND Corporation instructs us that, since 1968, very few terrorist groups get defeated using military force. (Oddly enough, 40% get defeated by police and intelligence work and another 43% "lose" by joining the political process.) And of course, as we might remember from that time before 2001, there are other ways to accomplish things in the world besides war. I wonder why anyone would suggest that it's just too dangerous for government to account for its actions to its owners, the American people.

Finally, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State assists you in demanding that Mr. Obama's Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships end Tha Bush Mobb's practice of permitting faith-based organizations to take federal money and discriminate in its hiring practices. Perhaps Mr. Obama fantasizes that religious right-wingers will one day vote for him in large numbers; perhaps Mr. Obama believes the problems we face to be so dire that we can't fix the discrimination Mr. Bush made lawful until later on. But it's not what you believe and do in good times that defines you; it's what you believe and do in bad times that defines you. In bad times and good, right and wrong are the same. Letting faith-based organizations take federal money without following federal laws is wrong. Maybe Mr. Obama will respond to that sort of reasoning.

I got nothin'.

Congress is off this week, I have no action alerts in my inbox, and the "liberal" media haven't offended me so deeply I've felt like spouting off about it, so I probably won't post again at least until Thursday. Of course, if the Executive branch tries some crap before then, I'll address it.

Of course, there's nothing stopping you from calling your Congressfolk and demanding a 90% tax bracket for the top one-fifth of one percent of income earners, or an immediate end to the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, or a Constitutional amendment affirming that corporations are not people and don't deserve more rights than people.

rough boys.

You'd think after nearly 30 years of wildly successful Reaganism, Americans would be more opposed to government-run health care, right? Well, not exactly -- and the CBS/NYT numbers (49% favoring a complete government-run system, plus 10% favoring government-run ER care) are actually a little lower than other numbers I've seen. Despite that, Sen. Baucus (D-MT) -- star of the Alternative Minimum Tax Patch Über Alles Show -- has declared, flatly, that a European-style, single-payer health care system is "off the table" as far as health care reform discussions. But we don't have to listen to him, because the more I read H.R. 676, a John Conyers production, the more like it. Sec. 211 (c) (1) (B), for example, should warm the hearts of all progressive income tax supporters, and Sec. 103 (a) (5) states that compensation for converting for-profits to non-profits "may be made only for costs associated with the conversion of real property and equipment." Meaning your bonuses and options, Dr. Frist, are not real. It's time to put this bill on the table.

Jewish Voice for Peace provides an open letter to President Obama calling for him to engage all sides in the Israel/Palestine imbroglio -- and "all sides" includes Hamas, the democratically-elected majority party in the Palestinian Parliament. I'm sick of right-wingers telling us that "talking to our enemies" equals appeasement. Talking doesn't equal anything but talking. They'll go on about Munich, too, but as even Chris Matthews said, appeasement wasn't talking to Hitler, it was giving in to Hitler. Folks who think that talking equals appeasement obviously have no faith in the process of negotiation. It's pretty simple, really: if you want peace on earth, sooner or later you'll have to talk to someone you don't like. If you only want to talk to people you like, well, we'll just have to keep outvoting you.

In other news, it must be John Conyers day! Rep. Conyers did indeed request that Attorney General Holder and Homeland (sic) Security (sic) Secretary Napolitano investigate Sheriff Joe Arpaio's alleged civil rights abuses, upon which we touched here last week. Of course, Ms. Napolitano had six years to do something about Joe Arpaio's shenanigans while she was Governor of Arizona, but Mr. Holder does not have that particular problem. ACORN provides the relevant petition asking Mr. Holder and Ms. Napolitano to investigate further. That's right, I said ACORN, which (for some reason) has become the right-wing's new bugaboo. ACORN, ACORN, ACORN! Take that, Sean Hannity!

penny rants for the day of February 15, 2009.

David Frum suggests that Mr. Obama's selling of the stimulus was like Mr. Bush's selling of the Iraq war. Here's the money quote: "After 9/11, President Bush (supported by me, among others) argued that the right way to respond to a terrorist attack from Afghanistan was by overthrowing Saddam Hussein. We offered a complicated explanation for this roundabout response, and for a time the public accepted it. But as the war went wrong, and failed to deliver the promised results, our plan’s credibility collapsed. Now the Democrats have placed themselves in a similar situation. They are offering an indirect answer to an immediate question." You can see all the problems with that, right? Going backward: stimulus is not an "indirect" answer to current economic problems; the public was never much more than 50/50 on the war even when it was going well and might have been far less inclined to support the war if the "liberal" media didn't carry so much water for it; and Mr. Bush didn't offer a "complicated explanation" so much as a series of incoherent ones that shifted depending on how well the previous one was doing. I remember all that, because I was there. Oh, and as for a payroll tax "suspension": if he means withholding federal income tax, then workers would get hit with a massive tax bill next year, and if he means the half of the FICA tax that gets withheld from paychecks, then Social Security and Medicare go into the red considerably faster. It's almost like that's the idea.

Generally, The Politico sucks, and, generally, Politico writer Ben Smith also sucks, but here he proves the stopped clock rule by noting the disconnect between what the "liberal" media says America thinks and what Americans actually think. The "liberal" media has had a few months to catch up to the fact that voters have fairly well repudiated Republicans, and if Mr. Smith's article is any indication, perhaps they actually will catch up. But I still see three points of suckitude in this article. One, Mr. Smith talks about the "Obama brand," because, as you know, talking about everything like it's money has done so well for us as a culture. Two, the problem isn't that Beltway types "(eat) and (live) politics" so much as they carry water for their corporate paymasters and the politicians who do their bidding. Three, Mr. Smith (oops, accidentally typed "Sith" -- as if!) knows the "liberal" media will quote his first paragraph out of context for the next few days. You'd think he'd be more careful. I wonder why he wasn't.

what keeps mankind alive?

If you missed yesterday's ACLU alert in re the "state secrets" issue, the Center for Constitutional Rights has another one, though in this one you'll be contacting Attorney General Holder rather than expressing support for legislation. To summarize: five victims of Tha Bush Mobb's "extraordinary rendition" program -- including one man still being held in Guantánamo Bay without charges -- are suing in U.S. courts, and the Obama Administration wants to block the suits using the "state secrets" privilege. A President can invoke this privilege on the grounds that national security would be threatened, but also on the grounds that relations with a foreign power would be threatened. If this report is accurate, I'm guessing it's the latter item this time. As Corey Hart used to say, it ain't enough.

The Union of Concerned Scientists provides a contact tool with which you may express your support for H.R. 890 (a production of Democrat Edward Markey of Massachusetts and Republican Todd Platts of Pennsylvania), which would require all utilities to produce 25 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2025. Personally I think we could get to 100% real soon if we tried real hard, but H.R. 890 represents progress, and doesn't pre-empt the possibility that I'll support something better if it comes along. You'll actually be asking your House Rep to sign on as a co-sponsor. You'll want to remind him or her that this mandate will actually create jobs. I mean, who do Republicans think will be refitting utilities to use solar and wind and the like? Robots? Maybe in their dreams.

Meanwhile, I've watched the Judd Gregg saga with some interest. I never thought Mr. Gregg was a good fit for an Obama cabinet, obviously, but of course the "liberal" media sees all things differently -- despite Mr. Gregg actually saying "It was my mistake, obviously, to say yes" and "the fault lies with me," they've decided the whole thing is a problem for Mr. Obama. You know, the usual crap -- a string of appointees with problems now, and, of course, not enough bipartisanship in the cabinet, though I believe Mr. Obama now has twice as many Republicans in his cabinet as Mr. Bush had Democrats in his. Yikes, this is analysis? Here's some analysis from a guy who's not getting paid to give it: the Obama team may have conjured up this appointment to create chaos for the GOP. Had Mr. Gregg taken the job, the Obama Administration could have burnished its "bipartisan" credentials; had he not, he would have looked like a guy who doesn't serve when called. But taking-the-job-before-refusing-the-job is a gift they might not have imagined -- now the Democrats have either an open seat or a weakened candidate in a 2010 New Hampshire Senate race that already looked like a good pickup whether John Lynch was in the race or not.

keep on chooglin'.

As the reconciled stimulus package moves to a vote, let's switch gears for a minute. Public Citizen has organized a national call-in day today in support of Rep. Conyers's single-payer health care bill, H.R. 676. We're the only Big Dawg on the planet that lets 50 million people go uninsured, and no matter how much Brits complain about their health care system (I've heard it, too), it's a lot better than the Kafkaesque mess we have now, where the uninsured have to take their kids to the ER for the sniffles and the government winds up paying it anyway. Might as well have a government-run system that pays a hundred bucks for a pediatric visit rather than a thousand for an ER visit that could have been handled by a pediatrician. Some folks don't like the idea of government "taking over health care" -- in fact, you've been seeing them on the "liberal" media, and you'll continue to see them. What none of them say is that the alternative isn't the "free market," which doesn't exist, but the corporate-controlled system that already exists, and which doesn't do the job. And you can vote a government out. You can't vote a corporation out.

From the "step forward, step backward" file: the Obama Administration has, apparently, stood with Bush Mobb policy on extraordinary renditions, claiming "state secrets" would be in danger if a suit against a Boeing subsidiary helping the CIA rendition program were to proceed. I wonder what "state secrets" Mr. Obama is "protecting" here. Fortunately, the State Secrets Protection Act (a Jerrold Nadler production in the House, and a Leahy/Specter/Kennedy production in the Senate), introduced last year, would narrow an Administration's ability to thwart lawsuits citing the protection of "state secrets" -- if, of course, it were reintroduced. The ACLU provides an action page toward that end. If you sign on, you'll be taken to a donation page, but don't feel any pressure to donate. Your gift to America isn't your money; it's your counsel.

Rep. Delahunt (D-MA) (like there are any Rs left in the MA Congressional delegation!) has introduced a resolution in support of former Sen. Mitchell's diplomacy in re Israel and Palestine. Sounds like a real nothingburger, doesn't it? Actually, it's not -- Congress has been happily passing exclusively pro-Israel resolutions for many years, and our government has been happily sending arms to Israel so that it may continue overreacting to the threats against it, thereby exacerbating them. The Delahunt resolution includes the sort of language (much of it quoted from President Obama) that makes the reflexively pro-Israel crowd call folks like me an anti-Semite -- like "the establishment of two states" and "the loss of Palestinian and Israeli life." Congress ought to hear from its owners, the people, that they're not so hot on automatically approving (and arming) whatever Israel wants to do. Just Foreign Policy has the contact tool.

A couple of birthday celebrations are in order (and in this order) for today: first, for Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin, who would both be 200 today if they'd been turned by vampires, and second, for "Thieves in the Temple," which first posted exactly four years ago today with a bad dream I had about Tha Bush Mobb trying to kill my cats with a fork. If all goes according to plan, I will not still be writing "Thieves in the Temple" when I'm 200.

hung up.

Mr. Geithner will push more big handouts for banks soon, and I would prefer that the government simply use its putative largesse to make up the difference between value and price in the "bad" mortgages that are causing all the securities to go toxic, but I'm not seeing that action alert in my inbox. Hell, there's nothing stopping us from contacting Mr. Obama and asking for that. In the meantime, Congress considers legislation permitting bankruptcy courts to modify homeowner mortgages, which said courts can already do for commercial real estate and rich folks' vacation homes, but not for the place where you live, love, raise children, and join community watches. Consumers Union provides the contact tool. And I sure do hope Mr. Obama understands how unpopular Tim Geithner is, and how unpopular he's going to get in the next week or so.

As we said yesterday, the stimulus package heads for the reconciliation process. Here's a wish list, courtesy RESULTS: a) restore $13 billion (of the original $100 billion in the House bill) in Medicaid assistance to the states; b) restore $3.5 billion (of the original $20 billion) in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funding; c) add $3 billion in Head Start/Early Head Start funding to the Senate bill; d) add $1 billion in child care development block grants; e) lower the income eligibility of the Child Tax Credit to $0; f) oppose the $70 billion Alternative Minimum Tax "patch," which will benefit upper-income folks, who tend to hoard their extra money because, you know, they can. The toll-free number is 866.544.7573; this page may also help you organize your thoughts. So might this one, courtesy the Coalition for Human Needs.

Speaking of the CHN, they've provided two letter-to-the-editor tools, one general one and another focused just on the Child Tax Credit. Newspapers might be dying, but a lot of good folks still read letters-to-the-editor, so don't get discouraged. Let me mention that I'm a bit bummed by the folks the Senate chose to negotiate a final bill: Baucus (D-MT), Inouye (D-HI), Reid (D-NV), Grassley (R-IA), Cochran (R-MI). These five men all deserve phone calls, too, especially that fool Max Baucus, whose preoccupation with the Alternative Minimum Tax is a passion bordering on madness.

In other news, Jon Stewart offers this devastating analysis of Bill O'Reilly's selective commitment to "privacy rights." I'm only sad that Mr. Stewart didn't mention Mr. O'Reilly's support for the NSA wiretapping program as long as it's just on terrorists. But the clip's juxtaposition of Mr. O'Reilly's stated disapproval of paparazzi with his own paparazzi-style tactics on his political enemies shows us what the news has become: a fusion of proud know-nothingism and sensationalism. The clip also reminds us that Mr. O'Reilly is, first and foremost, a celebrity, and one absolutely convinced that celebrities are the most important people on earth. Funny how he could only become a celebrity in a time when reporters advance their own careers at any cost to anyone. I mean, back when reporters were actually supposed to report things, he was a nobody.

UPDATE. In paragraph three, I originally said all the House conferees on the stimulus bill were Democrats, and suggested that might be the Democrats' fault, but I was dead wrong about all of that -- per MSNBC's First Read, Jerry Lewis and David Camp join David Obey, Charles Rangel, and Henry Waxman as House conferees on the stimulus bill. I've pulled the offending sentence, partly because of the error and partly because, frankly, it was getting in the way of my point anyway. That's what I get for trying to be bipartisan.

ANOTHER UPDATE. Arrgh! How did I forget it's useless to call your Congressfolk about TARP money disbursement in paragraph one? That is (per the lousy TARP legislation) the President's job, so I've made the correction and included a link to Mr. Obama's contact page. Obviously I took the stupid pills today.

li'l king of everything.

Yesterday the Senate finally let their version of a stimulus bill come to a vote, but it's worse than the House plan by about $100 billion more in tax cuts and, thus, around $100 billion less in spending. If the Senate passes their plan, then the House and Senate versions must be reconciled. That ought to be a lot of fun! But I see an opening: what reason do Rush Limbaugh's dittoheads have to clog the phone lines of our Reps and Senators now? "Yes, I'm a constituent, and I'd like to see the Senate ver--can't--get--out--the--words--" Now would be a great time to call both your Reps and Senators and tell them that, if we've gotta debt-spend, we ought to be spending it on, like, you know, spending, and not, for example, the Alternative Minimum Tax "patch," with which Senator Baucus is so obsessed. The Capitol switchboard's numbers are 202.224.3121 and 800.830.5738; you can also use the number the Quakers provide, 1.800.473.6711, or you can call your Reps and Senators directly, using the tools in the upper left-hand corner of this page. The plan needs (in short) fewer tax breaks for corporations and the rich, and more aid to states and the unemployed.

So ACORN sent me an email about Maricopa County (AZ) sheriff Joe Arpaio, known most recently for marching 200 undocumented immigrants across the city to a tent jail, and I decided I wanted to learn more about him. I kinda wish I hadn't -- the absolute best I can say about him is that he turned one of his nonworking jails into a decent animal shelter, which fact goes straight to the files labeled "stopped clock" and "one counterexample doesn't obliterate a trend." So ACORN provides a petition asking House Judiciary Chair John Conyers (D-MI) to investigate. Sounds like a heavy-handed solution? Well, if Mr. Arpaio is, in fact, guilty of racial profiling, retaliatory arrests, police brutality, or unlawful detention, he's undoubtedly violated federal law, and if the state of Arizona has done little to nothing about that, who else is gonna do it?

lies running and hiding.

While Republicans "wonder" if any government spending really "stimulates" the economy (and might be ready, in Atrios's words, to play Lucy taking the football away from Charlie Brown), they've raised nary a peep about pork for nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons! I think that'll be a waste of money, as much defense spending is a waste of money. I didn't say defense is a waste of money, but defense contractors are the welfare kings of America -- if you want to argue the point, all you have to do is find the trillions of dollars in defense spending the DoD can't find, or tell me why exactly the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are failing even though they're being fought with hundreds of billions of dollars in off-budget money. (Answers including the words "you liberals wanted us to fail" are not acceptable. If we had that kind of power, there'd have been no 9.11.) Here's how to tell your Senator to strip nuke funding from the stimulus bill.

Leaked language from the multinational Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement indicates that ACTA, in its apparent zeal to find folks making DVDs of movies not even in theatres yet and the like, would give customs authorities worldwide near-absolute power to search and seize your laptop and iPod and such. ACTA might even create a whole new set of freedom-infringing regulations governing the internet -- but very few people involved with ACTA seem to want to talk about that. That can't be because ACTA would only benefit corporations and would stifle the creativity of people, can it? The Electronic Freedom Foundation helps you contact your Senator and demand more information about ACTA's intentions and initiatives. Per the Constitution, the Senate would have to ratify any multinational trade agreement, and (contrary to John Yoo's infernally stupid opinion) if they ratify it, it'd be the law of the land. So Americans have a right to know what that law's going to be, and we have a right to argue against it, too.

Meanwhile, I'm not a Lou Dobbs hater -- yes I do think he's in the illegal immigration fight because he's-white-and-they're-not, but (as David Sirota demonstrates in his excellent book The Uprising, which describes current populist movements from both left and right) Mr. Dobbs has a considerably larger streak of populist independence than the other "liberal" media punditoids. Yet here he is, in my crosshairs, because on Wednesday he suggested the Employee Free Choice Act would "end" the secret ballot for union elections. Lies sure do travel faster than truth, don't they? Anyone who can read already knows the EFCA doesn't "end" the secret ballot -- it merely gives the workers the choice of a card check or a secret ballot. Yikes. FAIR provides more information, as well as contact information for Mr. Dobbs. Go ahead and be respectful to Mr. Dobbs, though he might not be respectful back.

readings for the day of February 7, 2009.

Think Progress still finds that Republicans dominate the cable news discussion about the stimulus -- only 75 to 41 this time (covering Monday morning through Thursday evening), versus 51 to 25 last time (covering the previous Monday through Wednesday). Then again, this time quite a few of those Democrats went on the cable news channels to oppose the stimulus in one way or another, so it's probably a wash. Though the big telecoms assure us they're working on the imbalance, I could just copy much of my first paragraph from February 3rd and paste it here. I was just saying to a friend the other day that our only task for the last eight years has been to tabulate the obvious. Apparently, thanks to the "liberal" media, this task has not changed.

Meanwhile, Eric Boehlert informs us that the press have gone back to sniping at the President, just like they did to President Clinton, and just like they didn't do to Mr. Bush. Mr. Boehlert's list of anecdotes is devastating enough, but I don't get the impression that reporters ask tough questions of Mr. Obama, either -- I've already read far, far too much about how people don't wear ties enough at the Obama White House, like people with ties are the Great Wise Men of America. Didn't I say that when Dean Reynolds said that Mr. Obama didn't treat the press as well as Mr. McCain and that "what goes around comes around," he was actually issuing a threat? Apparently, I was right.

baby's on fire.

More on the stimulus: Chris Bowers at openleft.com reported last week that, although the $9 billion in broadband grant spending in the Senate stimulus bill contained strong network neutrality language (that is, no one getting such a grant could discriminate as to which files to move along faster), the tax credits in the bill for companies to expand broadband to rural areas did not. Thus big old Verizon could institute its my-rich-partners'-files-are-more-important-than-your-cheesy-eight-hit-a-day-blog scheme of "file management," at least to rural areas, and then argue precedent for doing it everywhere else. Perhaps not coincidentally, the broadband grant item sounds like stimulus and the tax credit item sounds like corporate welfare. I think this would be a good time to call your Senator (particularly if his name is Jay Rockefeller, Senate Commerce Chairman) and tell him or her to approach the rural divide much differently. Like, with grants that have strong network neutrality provisions, and not with what essentially amounts to begging the big telecoms to build in areas they don't want to build in anyway.

Also in re the stimulus, Talking Points Memo has a copy of the Ben Nelson/Susan Collins memo outlining some $100 billion in cuts they might like to make to the stimulus bill. It's eight pages long, but it's not a long read -- page 3, in particular, would like to cut funding for both the Violence Against Women Act and wireless communications for law enforcement in half. Think either of those cuts would be popular? Think either of those (by themselves or in tandem with other cuts) justify More Tax Cuts for the Rich and/or an Alternative Minimum Tax "patch"? Anyway, you may want to make a list of the cuts you don't want made, and communicate that to your Senators. You may also want to remind your Senators that rich people, when given extra money, tend to hoard it, rather than spend it on stimulating the economy. Poor people spend it -- otherwise, they'll have to skip more meals.

In other news, Americans United for Separation of Church and State finds Mr. Obama's "faith-based" program fairly wanting -- specifically, that Mr. Obama still permits funding of groups that directly proselytize (versus groups that merely provide vital services) and, worse, permits religion-based employment discrimination. What part of take-federal-money-obey-federal-rules does Mr. Obama not get? Maybe Mr. Obama wants to "move slowly," and maybe, just maybe, he's wiser than I am in doing that. But I'm a William Lloyd Garrison kind of guy -- to anti-slavery advocates who wanted to remove slavery gradually in the 19th century he said, essentially, you don't pull a baby out of a fire gradually. I think injustice needs to be cut out, now, before it becomes a cancer on justice, and I'll continue to be that way. Being untrue to myself in order to give Mr. Obama cover? Not my job as a citizen. Mr. Obama's contact page is still here.

can't be no drain if there ain't no brain.

We'll get to the stimulus, but first: Dave Lindorff suggests that Mr. Obama's generals -- specifically Gen. Petraeus and Gen. Odierno -- might campaign against the end of the Iraq war, and might well take to the airwaves to do so. If that sounds like "free speech" and not like "insubordination," Mr. Lindorff has an answer: "There is no greater threat to democratic freedom than a military that refuses to accept, or that actively works to undermine civilian authority. Generals and admirals certainly have a right to object to the decisions made by their commander in chief, but they cannot act in defiance or those decisions while in uniform." You probably know this intuitively from, you know, working a job, where you also kinda gotta do what your boss says if you want to stay around. You can tell Mr. Obama he must fire the generals for any act of insubordination here.

Atrios alludes to the biggest problem we have in supporting the stimulus: there are so many dang things in it it's hard to know what to support. I've had this problem, too, but I'll see if I (or, more specifically, the organizations who send me alerts) can help. RESULTS gives me this list: a 20 percent increase in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for two years; no less than $100 billion in state assistance for Medicaid; $4.3 billion in new funding for Head Start/Early Head Start and $3 billion in child care development block grants; and lowering the eligibility for the Child Tax Credit to $0 (which the House version of H.R. 1 already does). These things do-so stimulate the economy -- do Republicans think grants get written by robots, for example? Do they think robots oversee how money gets spent, or advise organizations on how money gets spent? Do they think a break for poor people over here means they won't spend money over there? The phone number RESULTS provides is 866.544.7573.

We've been hearing a lot about corporate malfeasance lately -- bailout recipient Bank of America spending $10 million on a five-day pre-Super Bowl retreat, bailed out companies spending over $100 million on political lobbying in 2008, bailout recipient Wells-Fargo canceling a corporate retreat to Las Vegas only after an enormous public outcry. President Obama has responded by declaring that bailed-out corporate CEO compensation will not exceed $500 million -- how's that the-executive-branch-and-the-executive-branch-alone-can-deal-with-this attitude look now, Mr. Bush? I don't think any CEO, anywhere, should be making more than 30 times their lowest-paid worker, but this is a good start. I know it's a good start because Wall Street CEOs are whining about it like a bunch of spoiled brats. One of them even had the nerve to say there'll be a "brain drain" from TARP recipients to non-TARP recipients. Earth to Mr. Straszheim: who among you idiots do you think other companies are trying to recruit away? "Yeah, hire him, he ran Bear Stearns right into the ground." Thank Mr. Obama for his step, using the White House's contact form.

Meanwhile, I have a pair of Guantánamo-related action alerts: the ACLU provides a letter-to-the-editor tool to counter right-wing lies about "terrorists being jailed in your backyard" (why, my backyard barely holds any plants!) and "61 terrorists going back to terrorism after being freed" and the like. Golly, how did Bill Clinton ever deal with those guys who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993? Oh, I know: he put them in jail. You'd think if they'd done something since then, Tha Bush Mobb would have trumpeted it from the mountaintops. Also, the Center for Constitutional Rights and Witness Against Torture urge us to call President Obama (202.456.1111) and Attorney General Eric Holder (202.353.1555) to urge them to release 17 Uighur men into the United States as ordered by U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina in October 2008. In case you were wondering if the 17 Uighurs, members of a persecuted Muslim minority in China, are dangerous or something: the military cleared most of them of any offense in 2003, and Tha Bush Mobb acknowledged they were not "enemy combatants" in 2008. And, like most Guantánamo residents, they got there because of bounty hunters, who are not the most reliable advisors in re international terrorism. And they can't go back to China, obviously. Maybe Bill O'Reilly has space in his backyard.

Finally (cue cheers from the convention crowd), Rep. Miller is about to reintroduce the Employee Free Choice Act in the House, and American Rights at Work still provides an online petition supporting it. I hate to sound like a broken record, but the Employee Free Choice Act will not destroy a worker's right to a secret ballot -- it will allow workers to organize using card checks, in order to avoid the intimidation and harassment that often accompanies union elections. It couldn't be a coincidence that EFCA supporter and Secretary of Labor-designate Hilda Solis can't get a hearing from the Senate, could it? I'd hate to think Republicans would be so partisan at a time of such crisis.

UPDATE. I know I put a lot on everyone's plate today, but don't be discouraged; your country needs you. I wound up having to use Senator Specter's email form rather than his phone line; Senator Casey, at least, has an answering service to handle the larger volume. Yes, Senator Specter, I'm calling you out -- I know the dittoheads have been clogging up your phone lines, but you're the Senator and you need to be prepared for, I don't know, hearing from your constituents a lot. I'd hate to think this is all gamed the other way, you know.

that's it, Congress! You made me do it!

Quickly, before I'm late for work: CREDO helps you demand that the Senate avoid five particular screw-ups in passing a stimulus package. PennPIRG helps you put pressure on Sen. Specter to support environment-related stimuli. Thieves in the Temple reminds you that Senate Republicans have no business insisting on "homeowner relief" in the stimulus bill, and that President Obama ought to be using TARP funds for that purpose; Mr. Obama can be contacted here, either via the webmail tool or the phone numbers at the bottom of the page -- or both. And, "liberal" media: enough with the "bipartisanship" already. Do you all just hate your readers or what?

Meanwhile, this was the question on many of my co-workers' minds last night: what gives Tom "the Architect of Capitulation" Daschle the right to avoid paying taxes while the rest of us working stiffs have to struggle to make ends meet? That's a lot of money that'll never go to helping America out, and I don't believe he just didn't understand the meaning of "income." Adding insult to injury, Mr. Obama went on four networks yesterday to stump for his stimulus plan, and instead had to answer questions about how he missed Tom Daschle's tax problems. Heckuva job, Tommy Boy. Please visit Tom Daschle's 2012 campaign website at nochance2012.org.

readings for the day of February 3, 2009.

Surprise, pimps: your "liberal" media still sucks! Thinkprogress finds that the cable news debate over the stimulus is dominated by Republicans at about 2 to 1. You might think with their 60-odd seat majority in the House, their 17-odd seat majority in the Senate, and their crucial one-seat majority in the President's office, Democrats would get a lot more TV time now. But I can explain it to you. You see, back when the Republicans controlled Congress, they deserved to be on TV more, because they were in power. But now they deserve to be on TV more because their minority viewpoints need to be heard. So, in sum: Republicans need to be on TV more when they're in power, and also when they're not. Got it? Good. Now go collect your eight-digit bonus from CBS.

Meanwhile, putative liberal media villain Bill Moyers addresses the Obama-ordered drone killings in Pakistan. Think about it for half a second and you'll realize that sending drones in to get-bin-Laden is a bad way of getting bin Laden -- and that's before you get to "what it feels like to be bombed." Of course, using drones is a wonderful way for defense contractors to steal taxpayer money, for which madness Democrats are just as responsible as Republicans. Now Mr. Obama already has an out if any reporter actually asks him to explain what's going on -- Mr. Bush deployed all our boots in bad wars, he'll say, instead of good efforts like establishing contacts within Pakistan so we can root Mr. bin Laden out, and I suppose he would have a point. He can't tell that to the families of dead civilians, though, because those civilians will still be dead.

(I have an early morning appointment tomorrow, so I probably will not be able to post -- unless I feel especially caustic later on in the day and can get access to a computer on my break from work. Congress, don't make me do it!)

UPDATE. Link in first paragraph (and its resulting mistakes) corrected; I have no idea how I wound up linking to the Media Matters study from 2006, which evidence obviously doesn't prove my point about current problems. That's an inexcusable error on my part.

I'll give you a stimulus!

Citizens for Tax Justice alerts us that corporate lobbyists, easily America's most popular citizens right now, will push another round of "repatriation amnesty" as a great economic stimulus! I should explain: corporations like to hide their profits offshore, so they don't have to pay taxes on them like they should be doing; an "amnesty" would allow them to bring those profits back to the U.S., but pay taxes on them at a much lower rate (around 5 percent, versus the 35 percent they ought to be paying). Sounds like a scam, doesn't it? Sounds like it rewards bad behavior, doesn't it? And Congress did this very thing in 2004. Everybody remembers how stimulated the economy was in 2004, right? Tools for contacting your Congressfolk are, as always, in the upper left-hand corner of this page. They'll never see us coming.

Meanwhile, I'm getting the distinct impression that the "liberal" media doesn't want the stimulus bill to pass. Well, that's reason enough to go all in to support it! If the "liberal" media wants something, I'll bet it's good only for their corporate paymasters -- hell, maybe the "liberal" media are the corporate paymasters now -- and if they don't want something, it's probably something of value. Is it really that simple? I'm thinking it really is that simple -- the "liberal" media doesn't report, doesn't inform, doesn't do anything but insult your intelligence. Besides, I already set terms under which I'd oppose the stimulus bill: repeal of TARP. Congress won't do that, so I'm calling my Senators and telling them to stop playing with our lives already. True Majority provides the phone number.

UPDATE. I'm having a hard time reaching my elected officials by phone today, even using the toll-free number True Majority provides above. Either a) that's how ought to be or b) there's funny-stuff going on. Anyway, keep trying.

enhanced democratic techniques.

President Obama brought interrogation techniques in line with the Army Field Manual last week, but as this intrepid individual reminds us, Tha Bush Mobb revised the Army Field Manual in 2006 in order to give cover to some abuses already going on at Guantánamo. Appendix M permits interrogators to do all sorts of nasty things to "unlawful combatants" -- which, as you might recall, could be you just on the President's say-so. Not that "enhanced interrogation techniques" even deliver the goods, as David Rose reminds us here. The Center for Constitutional Rights assists you in demanding the closure of Army Field Manual loopholes. Those who think only maniacs make us safe must have very little faith in themselves.

The Senate takes up H.R. 1 this week, and the Coalition for Human Needs provides a phone number (1.866.544.7573) demanding that Senators avoid adding all sorts of poison pills to the bill. "Poison pills" would include making Tha Bush Mobb tax cuts permanent, or adding more unnecessary tax cuts for businesses, or denying the $500/$1000 tax credits to "people who don't pay taxes," who we all know don't exist except in Republican heads. (Everyone pays payroll taxes and sales taxes, for example, and we all know that payroll and sales taxes hit poorer people harder than they hit wealthier people.) Other poison pills would include more aid for the housing and finance industry. Hello, Senators? You just gave them $700 billion with no strings attached. Most of what I've seen from this stimulus bill actually does help people -- even the tax cuts that are already in it. Would I trade the stimulus bill for the repeal of the bailout bill, straight up? Yes, I absolutely would. But I can't. So we may as well try to keep this bill on the right track.

Meanwhile, the FAIR blog provides this very interesting item: the New York Times tells us that the long-term effects of pre-natal cocaine exposure were always actually much smaller than advertised. I guess the Times waited until the establishment decided maybe liberalism wasn't such a bad thing after all before printing that, because the science never justified all the chest-puffing. If I were younger, I'd have found it amusing that Charles Krauthammer (with whom I've never agreed no-not-once on anything, and I can't even say that about Michelle Malkin) covered his obvious hatred of blacks with a faux-concern about black babies. But I'm older now, and fewer of these things are funny.