Thieves in the Temple.

unemployment benefits extension, plus credit card reform acceleration.

A while back, we talked about S.1699, which would have extended unemployment benefits to the states that didn't already have their unemployment benefits extended, but (according to an alert commenter) that bill got held up by Sens. Kyl (R-AZ) and Hatch (R-UT), under the pretext that they needed more time to study it blah blah blah. Seems like all Jon Kyl's good for is holding up good bills. But the Democratic Senate leadership brought H.R. 3548 -- which would extend unemployment benefits another 14 weeks for workers in all 50 states, and add another six weeks of benefits for workers in states with unemployment rates above 8.5% -- to a cloture vote instead, and that bill passed its cloture vote and will proceed to a full Senate vote soon. We've already delayed unemployment benefit extension too long. If we're going to let corporations make all our decisions for us, if we're going to let them fire workers willy-nilly for their own "survival," then extending unemployment benefits is the very least we can do. I said least, Senator Kyl, OK? Anyway, NETWORK, the National Catholic Social Justice Lobby, provides the contact tool.

Meanwhile, Congress's massive-but-not-quite-massive-enough credit card reform legislation will take effect in February, and as you might guess, credit card corporations have been jacking up rates and fees and minimum payments like there's no tomorrow. But H.R. 3639 would move credit card reform's kick-in date for the biggest credit-card issuers up to December 1, so that you might get some relief during the holidays. H.R. 3639 should get a House vote soon; Consumers Union provides the contact tool. Said contact tool also argues for the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which of course we ought to take every opportunity to support, since the U.S. Chamber of Commerce opponents are spending millions of dollars to defeat it, when they could be spending millions of dollars hiring people to defend the rights of small businesses. Which would, you know, create jobs.

the return of Quotestamp! (Guest-starring the Italics Hammer and the Hyphenator.)

At last, a climate change action tool I can get behind, and of course it's from the People's Email Network. No cap-and-trade, no giving away of emissions "permits," just a simple mandate to cap CO2 levels at 350 ppm, where it was about 20 years ago (vs. the 387 ppm we now have). Only a few people on Earth don't "believe in" global warming, but you don't have to be a scientist to reject their "skepticism," you just have to follow the money. Who "benefits" from global warming "alarmism"? According to global warming "skeptics," "radical" environmentalist organizations benefit. While global warming might help, say, the Sierra Club's fundraising efforts, it hardly makes them rich. Now who benefits from global warming "skepticism"? Large corporations that pollute a lot and stand to lose a lot of money if they're forced to pollute less -- in other words, people with actual money and actual power. In the follow-the-money game, the biggest pile of money always loses. Hell, the biggest pile of money has to lose somewhere.

Speaking of the environment, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar surprises (in a good way) by halting new claim-staking on one million acres of land around Grand Canyon National Park, and the Department of the Interior will now take public comments on whether he should extend that moratorium 20 more years. Environment Colorado helps you submit said comments. This will wind up being a long fight, though -- the 1872 Mining Law, a President Grant production, mandates that hardrock metal mining concerns always take precedence over environmental/local community impact concerns. That law got passed some 30-odd years before Teddy Roosevelt made conservation popular. The contact tool Environment Colorado provides also addresses the 1872 Mining Law, but you may want to contact your own Reps and Senators about it, too. They'll never see it coming.

penny rants for Monday, October 26, 2009: special "everything that sucked last week still sucks!" edition.

In the midst of Goldman-Sachs's huge profits and huge bonuses after being bailed out by taxpayers, what does its international Vice Chair have to say? "Thank you, taxpayers, for bailing us out of the mess we made, and we will gladly accept restrictions on executive pay because we really don't deserve these absurdly high salaries"? Well, not exactly: he suggests we must "tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity for all." By "all" I guess he means "all my friends." I'm actually a bit more disturbed by his statement that we ought to look at "the medium-term common good, not the short-term common good" -- Lord Griffiths apparently has nothing to say about the long-term common good, which cracking down on excessive executive pay surely serves. And finally, sensing his audience slipping away from him, he takes the world's economy hostage: if you crack down on our bonuses, the banks will all move to Switzerland! Then you'll be sorry. I don't think Switzerland, famously neutral during WWII and famously father of the "unnumbered Swiss bank account," could take the PR hit.

Just as a public service, FAIR reminds us that Rush Limbaugh, who showed interest in buying the St. Louis Rams earlier this month before numerous NFL players and owners suggested they'd look unkindly upon his long history of making racist remarks, does in fact have a long history of making racist remarks, contrary to what some right-wing commentators have said lately. Said commentators no doubt presume that "a lengthy list of racist remarks made by Rush Limbaugh" does not sit permanently at the front of your mind, and thus with enough yelling and shouting, they might get to the point where they can zing you with see? See? You couldn't name even one racist thing he said! Or, alternately, aside from the Donovan McNabb thing, you couldn't name even one racist thing he said! Or aside from the "take the bone out of your nose" thing and the Donovan McNabb thing -- OK, maybe it is easier to remember Mr. Limbaugh's record of shame than I'm inclined to think. Why, come to think of it, FAIR's list does not include that day in 1995 I heard Mr. Limbaugh discuss Rep. Major Owens (D-NY) with what I presume was supposed to be "jungle music" playing in the background. If you want to leave your own "Rush Limbaugh's Greatest Racist Moments" entry in the comments, go right ahead.

Meanwhile, Ann Coulter says on CNN that all Presidential assassins were liberals, "assassin by assassin by assassin." Not unless you define "liberal" as "radical segregationist and separatist," which I think more accurately describes John Wilkes Booth (Lincoln), or as "charlatan lawyer and disgruntled office-seeker," which more accurately describes Charles Guiteau (Garfield). In other news, Leon Czoglosz (McKinley) was too crazy for the anarchists of his day, let alone the progressives, and if we could pin down Lee Harvey Oswald (Kennedy) as a Communist, that still wouldn't make him a liberal, unless liberalism equals totalitarianism and/or state ownership of private property. But I guess, for Ms. Coulter, "liberal" means whatever she wants it to mean. I wonder what she makes of Gen. Butler's refusal to lead a right-wing coup against FDR. Actually, I don't. Neither does she, I'm pretty sure.

Finally, in an item of local interest, Philadelphia-area business leaders extoll the leadership skills of Phillies manager Charlie Manuel. His desperate pitching changes in NLCS Game 2 aside, I think Mr. Manuel is actually a pretty good manager, but he hardly needs an endorsement like this: "The closest analogy in business management to what he's done might be what happens on Wall Street." "What happens on Wall Street" these days is clearly not nearly as well-managed as what happens on the Phillies, who won the World Series in 2008 and are going back this year. In other news, the comments are, for once, well-informed and hilarious -- believe me, you don't see that in the sports pages that often.

an alert about health care, and, in addition, an alert about health care.

Forget Obamacare -- forcing people to buy into the corporate health insurance system, even with the vague hope of a public option or a "trigger" thereto somewhere down the line, is a scam, the kind of scam that makes me doubt either Mr. Obama's courage or his good intentions. Single-payer will have to start at the state level, and perhaps not coincidentally, Pennsylvania state Rep. Manderino (D-Philadelphia/Montgomery) and state Sen. Ferlo (D-Pittsburgh) have introduced single-payer bills in their respective houses. These bills are H.B. 1600 and S.B. 400, respectively. The bills would fund health care mainly through a 3% tax on individuals, a 10% payroll tax on employers, existing Medicaid/Medicare funds, and tobacco settlement funds. Now I think the income and payroll tax additions could be progressive, and I'm planning to tell my Reps and Senators so; Pennsylvania residents can do the same using contact information that may be found here. They'll never see it coming.

Meanwhile, Public Citizen still helps you defend against medical malpractice "reform," and advocate for real health care reform. For extra Anger Power, you might read this entry from Public Citizen's blog telling stories about folks whose medical malpractice claims were most emphatically not "frivolous." Only two anecdotes, you say, to prove that point? Well, that's one more anecdote than most tort "reform" proponents will give you at any given moment -- and their anecdotes, in my experience, don't actually prove their point (i.e. they don't describe actual miscarriages of justice, but suggest that people shouldn't have to go through the trouble of fighting unjust lawsuits, which, to me, is the price of living in a democracy). Plus most lawsuits get filed by corporations, not people, or even large groups of people. Yet the tort "reform" advocates generally leave corporations untouched. It's like that's the idea or something.

bring the noise!

Mr. Obama gives me hope sometimes -- like when he took on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's "remember the neighborhood butcher" ads, which imply that a Consumer Financial Protection Agency would adversely affect small businesses. "I don't know how many of your butchers are offering financial services," Mr. Obama told the press -- and no, an informal line of credit isn't the same as a derivative. Now Mr. Obama does have this habit of making nice noises and then coming up with reasons not to deliver, but then this isn't really about him -- it's about us, making the noise we need to make. PennPIRG helps us bring that noise.

Meanwhile, in case you've missed any of the pro-net neutrality action alerts I've been passing along here, Common Cause provides another one. The big telecoms have geared up to fight any and all efforts like H.R. 3458, and guess who's their willing pimp? Why, that "populist," Glenn Beck -- he of course thinks Net Neutrality is "Marxist." I shouldn't let pass that Mr. Beck's guest hack implies that the Christian Coalition is stupid for agreeing with the Free Press -- he did call Free Press's argument a "scare story," after all. Are Republican corporatists really afraid they'll lose their Christian allies? We can only hope! A politically independent Christian right would be far more valuable to democracy than the Christian right currently tethered to the corporatists who do far more to ruin their children's morals than any liberal does.

it came from the Senate Finance Committee! And other atrocities.

CREDO also provides a pro-net neutrality contact tool. Their email missive puts it quite succinctly: "Who do you want to decide which websites you can visit or what Internet content you can access -- you or a big telecom company?...Net Neutrality is the principle that Internet users, not Internet service providers, should be in control." The FCC prepares to propose new net neutrality rules this week, but the big telecoms are pretty mad about all that. We talked about an AT&T astroturfing effort yesterday, but the big telecoms have been attacking on more traditional fronts as well: an incredible 72 House Democrats sent a letter to the FCC opposing net neutrality rules, and guess what: all but two received contributions from big telecoms this year. It doesn't matter. They may have the money, but we have the will. Rep. Polis (D-CO) could tell you that.

Meanwhile, the health care "reform" bill that came from the Senate Finance Committee includes a provision mandating document requirements and database checks before anyone can receive subsidies or participate in health care exchanges. Supposedly that requirement would keep undocumented immigrants from receiving health care -- but surely you realize that an undocumented immigrant would want to avoid advertising their presence in the United States by getting health care. You may also know that the sort of "authentication" documents the provision requires, like a photo ID, aren't standardized across the country, so a lot of people (perhaps not coincidentally, poor people) don't have them. Make no mistake, this isn't a "solution" to a "problem" -- like "rescission," this provision just keeps people from getting health care, since, you know, health care is a burden on health insurers' profits. The ACLU helps you oppose this provision.

Pennsylvania residents, take note: Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R-Butler County) is at it again, calling Iraq/Afghanistan war veterans "traitors" and "Benedict Arnolds" for advocating for climate change legislation. I'm not much into demanding apologies from people -- generally, I think we apologize too readily and not very sincerely -- but I get so, so tired of folks who think everyone who disagrees with them is a "traitor." Here's the relevant section from Article III, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort." See the part about "disagreeing with Daryl Metcalfe"? Me neither. So Keystone Progress helps you hand out the beatdowns. And, ah, good citizens of Butler County? Could you unseat this man in 2010, please? Send a Libertarian to the House if you have to.

him, Al Franken (again)! Plus airport nudity and AT&T astroturfing.

Sen. Franken's anti-discrimination/anti-forced arbitration Defense Appropriations amendment did pass the Senate resoundingly, but now the House and Senate go into conference, and the Senate is actually thinking of weakening the amendment. You know, because it's in conference, the other place where good bills go to die, and also because they think no one's watching. Public Citizen helps you let them know we're watching. They recommend you call Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid first, and your own Senators second. The Franken Amendment's number is S.A. 2588, and the Appropriations bill's number is H.R. 3326. They don't get to use "the amendment wasn't in the House bill, so we had to compromise" as an excuse. If it passed the Senate by a 68-30 margin, chances are it would've passed the House with an even bigger margin.

Meanwhile, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) now has machines that enable screeners to see under your clothes. That wart you were thinking of getting burned off your rearend? Better get it done before you get on that plane! The TSA originally claimed it would only use the machines for secondary screening (presumably for folks who set off a metal detector), but has apparently changed its mind, and now plans to use them in place of metal detectors. The House has already overwhelmingly passed legislation reining in this practice, and the legislation was the brainchild of Utah Republican Jason Chaffetz, meaning it presumably has the blessing of the far right. So what's the Senate waiting for? The ACLU helps you demand that the Senate protect our privacy better during airport screening.

Free Press still provides a petition demanding that Congress codify network neutrality provisions, thereby preventing some corporation from telling you what you'll see on your internet. The occasion of this reminder? This item, describing a missive from a Senior Vice President at AT&T to all of his U.S.-based managers suggesting that they send anti-net neutrality comments to the FCC. The VP in question tells his managers to "use (their) personal accounts," presumably so they won't be identified as AT&T employees. The VP's missive is here; he provides "talking points" for his side. I already laughed out loud at number one -- China (China!) gives its wireless cell phone users more choices than the U.S. does. Did I mention it's China? A totalitarian state? Giving its consumers more choices than the U.S.? China? The talking points don't get any better from there -- number two decodes into "all regulation is anti-competition" when we know better, number three decodes into "all regulation is anti-network management" when we know better, number four decodes into "net neutrality will kill people" when we know better, and number five decodes into "wah! We hate Google! Wah!"

when governments go bad.

The Senate Judiciary Committee moved the weak Leahy PATRIOT reform bill forward last week, instead of the superior Feingold JUSTICE bill -- but the House has not acted on PATRIOT Act reform at all, so the ACLU helps you urge your Rep to introduce the JUSTICE Act or something like it. The House would still have to introduce such a bill, move it through committee to a full House vote, pass it, and then conference with the Senate to produce a final bill -- but that's four opportunities to make your will known to your Reps and Senators. They'll need to hear from us at every point, or else they'll do what they want, which is cave to the fearmongerers. Who may now count Barack Obama among their number -- now that he's President, he won't want to give up power that easily.

Meanwhile, the illegitimate Honduran coup government has hired a Washington, D.C.-based PR firm (Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter & Associates) to paint a smiley face on their regime -- which, for those of you counting at home, has kicked out a democratically-elected leader, cracked down on protestors sympathetic to said leader, and earned the enmity of just about the entire planet. SOA Watch (among others) will protest outside Chlopak et al's offices today at 12.30 pm, and also helps you urge Chlopak et al to reconsider its decision. You may also call them at 202.289.5900. Wasn't it Mark Twain who said "there are lies, damn lies, statistics, and public relations"? No? Well, he might have done, if he were alive today.

penny rants for Friday, October 16, 2009.

Here's a shocker: Louisiana justice of the peace Keith Bardwell won't marry an interracial couple. Out of concern for the children, you understand. And he has "piles and piles of black friends" -- that's right, piles, you know, like they're dirt or bricks or something. He even lets them use his bathroom, and in that he's been surpassed by Charles Pickering, who actually had them over for dinner. And anyway, "I've made some mistakes, but you have, too," so stop giving him guff. I wonder if Keith Bardwell believes, as the early 20th century anthropologist Franz Boas believed, that interracial marriage will ultimately end racism. If so, I guess he's less sanguine about the prospect than Mr. Boas was.

And now that the stock market has hit 10,000 again, Neil Cavuto celebrates "the Bush recovery." Yes, you read that right: such is the awesome power of George W. Bush that he can fix the economy nine months out of office. Mr. Cavuto poses it as a question, though of course it's not really a question, and sure enough he only talks to one analyst, who sure enough agrees that Mr. Bush should get some of the credit for the recovery. (I guess, since Mr. LaCamp doesn't think Mr. Bush deserves all the credit, Mr. Cavuto is being fair and balanced.) If he wanted, Mr. Cavuto could have found conservative analysts who would decry the unsustainable federal deficit, which is nearly all George W. Bush's fault. Or he could have found conservative analysts who would decry Mr. Bernanke's unsustainable next-to-zero interest rates, which is also nearly all George W. Bush's fault. But you can't praise your Lord and Savior that way, can you?

Finally, Glenn Beck hits another crying jag wishing for a simpler time in America, when we were all united. Then he shows us that Mean Joe Greene Coke ad and that Kodak ad, which do indeed come from a time when we were united -- united in our belief that government should serve its people and not mammon, united in our belief that the rich should help society provide opportunities for everyone, united in our belief that corporations should serve the cause of progress, all beliefs folks like Glenn Beck have spent their entire professional careers attacking. It gets better: he compares America to a teenager staying out too late at a party, and says it would be better if, like said teenager, we would just tell the truth to our parents about it, I'm guessing, since I can't tell who the "parents" represent in that analogy. And we're already "staying at home on a Saturday night because we're financially grounded," though Mr. Beck isn't, since Fox News pays him very well to spew nonsense. And, at the risk of piling on, I don't need Vicks Vaporub to move myself to tears -- the end of King Lear does that quite nicely, thank you. Yes, that's because I feel and he doesn't.

what in Sam Hill's goin' on?

Folks on the right like to accuse Mr. Obama of breaking a lot of promises he never made in the first place, but here's (another) actual promise he actually hasn't delivered on: he hasn't rescinded Bush Mobb-era rules allowing religious organizations receiving federal funds to discriminate in their hiring practices. What a conundrum, huh? If some Episcopalian charity can't just not hire Jews, what's the world coming to? One more time: if you receive federal funds, you follow federal rules, and if the federal rules say "don't discriminate," then you can't discriminate. You're not special if you're a religious organization. Americans United for the Separation of Church and State help you communicate your will to the President.

Planned Parenthood helps you call your Senators to demand that women don't get left out of health care reform. In your call, you'll specifically ask that your Senators "vote against any amendment that undermines women's access to comprehensive health care from the provider of their choice." You may want to add that if the amendment is offered by a Senator named Vitter or DeMint, that's a good sign they should vote against it. "Comprehensive" includes birth control and abortion, as far as I'm concerned, since they're both legal. My Libertarian friends like to tell me that health care providers should have the choice of whether or not to provide these services, but a) free markets should focus on consumer choice, not the provider's choice and b) try telling that to folks who live in rural areas and won't have a choice in any real sense.

penny rants for Wednesday, October 14, 2009.

At last, someone interrogates Howard Kurtz the right way! Seriously, I wish I could hug the Fairfax County, VA writer for his/her absolutely perfect query in re the Post editorial board's wish that Neda of Iran had won the Nobel Peace Prize instead of Mr. Obama. (Long story short: you can't win a Nobel Prize posthumously, and her martyrdom happened after the deadline for submissions.) The writer's question sticks to the facts and doesn't leave Mr. Kurtz an escape hatch, and the resulting reply is one of the single worst paragraphs I have ever read. No, Howard, you can't just invent an alternate universe where Martin Luther King Jr. dies in the early '60s just to cushion your concession of a point. And no, Howard, the Post editorial didn't say Neda of Iran was "a symbol" of someone who should have won the Prize, but wished she'd won the Prize. And no, Howard, editorials have no smaller obligation to get their facts straight than straight news articles just because they express an opinion. As someone who would prefer a world that would prize a Neda more than an Obama, I can say this: Howard Kurtz's stupidity is officially unbearable.

Meanwhile, I am once again compelled to feel bad for Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Mr. Graham was Newt Gingrich's emissary to the press during Mr. Clinton's impeachment hearings, but since becoming Senator, Mr. Graham has, on more than one occasion, acted as if being a Senator was a really important job -- he was the first Senator to condemn the abuses at Abu Ghraib, you may recall. Now the far-right hates his guts -- they call him "RINO," "douchebag," "traitor" (betraying a lack of familiarity with Article III, Section 3), and, in one particularly egregious explosion, a "wussypants, girly-man, half-a-sissy." As a famous philosopher once said: so much for civility! Keep in mind that Mr. Graham has reached out to John Kerry on climate legislation that Big Energy has already thoroughly eviscerated -- which makes me wonder if folks like Angry White Dude are in on the con.

Finally, Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) voted in favor of the Finance Committee's inadequate health care reform bill yesterday, even though the Republican Senate leadership threatened to deny her a Committee chair for which she's in line. (She'd only be ranking member of that Committee for the foreseeable future, but never mind.) Stunningly, reasonable political observers seem to wish Democrats were more like the Republicans in this matter. But a Senator's loyalty doesn't belong to his or her party's leadership, it belongs to his or her constituents. The constituents speak, and the Senator acts on their will; that's how it's supposed to work. I don't mean to assert that Evan Bayh, for example, really votes his constituents' will when he doesn't vote Harry Reid's will -- in fact, I suspect he more likely votes his corporate donors' will whether he's bucking leadership or not. But we have to stop viewing politics as football or war if we're going to make things any better. And when I say "we," I mean you, and I, and all the people we know, and all the people we can reach. Democracy is not a spectator sport. Democracy is us.

cloudbusting.

The People's Email Network, in an effort to "confront the dangerous trend toward violent extremism in America," has joined with Velvet Revolution to nail a seven-point petition to the government's door. In signing it, you'd demand that both the Justice Department and Congress investigate violent extremism within the U.S. and media incitement to said violence. I don't believe Bill O'Reilly has blood on his hands for George Tiller's murder (or that Glenn Beck has blood on his hands for whatever), so I worry a little about this kind of effort becoming Our Very Own Witchhunt. But the PEN petition doesn't call for anything unlawful, and calls, in fact, for quite a few good things -- like investigating media violations of antitrust laws, rolling back the loosening of media consolidation restrictions, and scrutinizing FCC broadcast licenses -- which I'd support under any circumstance.

Meanwhile, as the big financial kingpins prepare for another round of bad publicity, NETWORK, the (wait for it!) National Catholic Social Justice Lobby, calls for the reallocation of a mere $1 billion of TARP funding toward the National Housing Trust Fund. The relevant legislation is H.R. 3766, the Main Street TARP Act, and S. 1731, the Preserving Homes and Communities Act. Neither title contorts the language for the sake of a clever acronym, and H.R. 3766 also reallocates $2 billion of TARP money to the Emergency Homeowners' Relief Fund, while S. 1731 allocates a little over $6 billion in grants to states to assist homeowners currently in default on their mortgages. None of this is as good as mortgage cramdown, but it's good enough to support. NETWORK provides a contact tool for H.R. 3766 here, and another one for S. 1731 here.

You may have been one of the 23,000 good folks who signed a petition protesting worker conditions at the Giumarra Vineyards Corporation, which produces about a tenth of America's table grapes, but American Rights at Work now helps you post a comment on the Nature's Partner website protesting said working conditions. (Nature's Partner uses Giumarra grapes, in addition to dozens of other foodstuffs by other producers.) You might tell Nature's Partner that Giumarra forces workers to fill dangerously high quotas while picking in 100-degree-plus heat without adequate water or shade or breaks, plus they give unpaid "time-outs" for workers who protest the quotas, the heat, the lack of water, the lack of shade, or the lack of breaks. I'd say bullying and interfering in union elections also qualifies as a "bad working condition" -- you know, since it's a condition, and the workers are working. The only good thing about corporate "partnerships"? The bad PR can spread more easily.

Finally, Brendan Skwire suggests that the locally-owned Philadelphia media ignored one pro-health care reform stunt because reporters were "pulled off the story to cover Phillies fans at local bars." You're free to doubt the veracity of that particular story in the absence of further evidence, but the rest of the article is pretty damning anyway. See the Inquirer bury its coverage of HCAN's City Hall rally in its business section, where all stories critical of business go to die! See the Inquirer business reporter call numerous local pro-reform events "staged," then explain why her paper devoted such extensive coverage to the multitudinous "staged" events coming from the right! One more time: newspapers aren't dying because of new technologies. They're dying because they suck at what they do. And they suck at what they do because their corporate owners redistribute all their papers' income upward.

UPDATE. Corrected one word in paragraph four, sentence two above, so that paragraph four, sentence two above would make some sense. I used to know how to edit.

long-distance runaround.

H.R. 3126, the Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act of 2009, would, as its title suggests, establish a Consumer Financial Protection Agency that could prevent the next economic Armageddon. And yet, in the midst of the current economic Armageddon, not everyone's on board with it: apparently Rep. Melissa Bean (D-IL) plans to introduce an amendment that would prevent states from passing stronger consumer protection laws than those of the federal government. Rep. Bean is a "Blue Dog," or "fiscally-conservative Democrat," but I continue to insist that conservatism means more than just giving big corporations whatever they want. And these are the same big corporations that just crashed-and-burned our economy, so maybe, for a little while, they should shut it. Public Citizen helps you hand out the beatdowns.

Meanwhile, I found last night's opening segment on The Daily Show especially rousing. Long story short, Jon Stewart rips CNN for fact-checking a Saturday Night Live skit and then fact-checking nothing else. That Mr. Stewart fact-checks more in that segment than CNN does is a credit to him -- and a shame to the rest of us. I sure do wish I had some of that old-timey a la carte cable packaging right now, so I wouldn't have to pay CNN for the privilege of watching The Daily Show. Of course, if we rallied in D.C., the media wouldn't cover it.

creeping up to the money god.

H.R. 1826/S. 752, the Fair Elections Now Act, would help get big corporate money out of federal elections. I've had my qualms about it in the past -- namely, that it'd be too easy for the big corporate guns to bundle hundred-dollar contributions -- but a $100 limit would be much better than a $2,300 limit. I'm far less worried about the voluntary nature of the public financing program described in the bill -- similar systems work quite well in Maine and Arizona, and a candidate who opts out of the public financing system would be fairly well-stigmatized by his/her publicly-financed opponents. H.R. 1826 now has 102 co-sponsors; Public Citizen helps you urge your Rep to join them.

penny rants for Saturday, October 10, 2009.

We already know what to say when folks tell us CEOs deserve all that unearned money because they take risks (i.e., the biggest risk they take is that they'll get an eight-digit severance if they tank their company, instead of a nine-digit severance if they do a good job), but the other day I figured out what to say when folks tell us CEOs deserve all that money because it's impossible to retain top talent otherwise: namely, that corporations have no inalienable right to retain top talent, and that, moreover, it's supposed to be impossible to retain top talent. That's the nature of top talent: top talent always looks for new opportunities and new challenges, and a good manager's job isn't to redistribute income upward to "retain top talent," but to find and develop new top talent to replace the top talent you'll always lose. If the Minnesota Twins and Oakland A's can do it year in and year out, why can't American corporations?

Once again, the people over at Pravda TV try to hang the entire deficit around Mr. Obama's neck. My criticisms of Mr. Obama are legion, but his involvement in the growing budget deficit isn't one of them -- in fact, as I've said before, I'm surprised the deficit hasn't become much worse, given the huge stimulus package passed earlier this year. But who rammed that $700 billion financial services bailout down America's throat? George W. Bush did, that's who -- the fact that a Democratic Congress let him do it is irrelevant to the charge that "Obama tripled the deficit." I've posted about this before, when conservative economist Bruce Bartlett reminded us that Mr. Bush was responsible for about $1.2 trillion of the current deficit, and at that time, you may notice, estimates of the current deficit were considerably higher ($1.8 trillion vs. $1.4 trillion). But I guess I'll have to keep reminding everyone, since the media seems reluctant to do it.

Finally, surprise! Mr. Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize! Though reasonable people can disagree about whether Mr. Obama has earned it (I don't think he has, and, apparently, neither does Mr. Obama), the right-wing haters are still out in full force. What a hissy fit they'd have pitched if Mr. Bush had won it and Americans had been sincerely outraged! And putative conservative David Brooks was their enabler on NPR yesterday -- when E.J. Dionne pointed out how "rancid" the "anger" against Mr. Obama had become, Mr. Brooks dismissively said, "there's always going to be fringe voices (sic)" and promptly changed the subject, thus effacing the fact that, in this sick, immoral and decadent culture, the "fringe voices" routinely get booked on mainstream TV "news" programming and move into leadership positions in Congress. I've said it before and I'll say it again: if the haters really wonder why the world seems to be so against them, they need to start with the man in the mirror.

masters of war.

The House approved a Defense Authorization bill emerging from conference that releases names of students and instructors at the nefarious WHINSEC (née School of the Americas), but only for the next two years, and not at all if the Secretary of Defense decides the "national interest" takes precedence. Which is, you know, better than before, but still not enough -- many, many crimes were committed between 2005 and 2008, and we need to know about all that if we're to pursue a just and effective foreign policy, which is in the "national interest." So SOA Watch still provides a slightly updated contact tool, with which you may express support for H.R. 2567. H.R. 2567 would actually suspend WHINSEC operations for a period not exceeding two years, until a bipartisan commission concludes an investigation into allegations of human rights abuses. Two years of breathing room for a lot of good folks in Latin America: priceless.

As I noted in this space before, the National Equality March takes place this coming Sunday, October 11. The marchers plan to meet in Farragut Square (17th & K St. NW) at 11 a.m. before heading over to the march kick-off site at noon. You can find more information about the march here. The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network also plans activities for the preceding Saturday, including a ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery at noon and a rally for don't-ask-don't-tell repeal, the time and place of which will be announced later. SLDN will also host a reception at Nellie's Sports Bar (9th & U St. NW) from 4-6 p.m. on Saturday honoring all LGBT soldiers. Let's see if we can outdraw Glenn Beck's 9.12 crew. And then let's see how the "liberal" media covers it on Monday morning.

Speaking of the "liberal" media, FAIR finds their case for war with Iran wanting, which may not surprise you. Do I think Iran wants to enrich uranium just to make power, especially when it's sitting on all that oil and sitting underneath all that sun? Of course not -- but if we're going to disregard our intelligence community's best estimate of Iranian nuclear capabilities whenever we feel like it, then why do we even have an intelligence community? And we've lost over 4,000 American soldiers (and over 1,000 private contractors) in Iraq because of weapons of mass destruction that, surprise, didn't exist, even though our intelligence community told us all about that, too. That's over 5,000 painful reasons to stop the "liberal" media from enabling the Masters of War. Just for starters.

real bipartisanship.

H.R. 1147/S. 592, the Local Community Radio Act of 2009, would permit low-power FM stations to flourish in this great land by repealing third-adjacent minimum distance separation requirements between LPFM stations and "full-service" FM stations, translator stations, and booster stations. H.R. 1147 enjoys broad bipartisan support -- Mike Doyle (D-PA) and Lee Terry (R-NE) originally co-sponsored the bill, and current co-sponsors (85 total!) range from Dennis Kucinich and Barbara Lee all the way to Ron Paul and Joe Wilson. So who has held up LPFMs this long? The big telecoms, of course -- they promoted the fiction that LPFMs interfere with other FM broadcasts, which fiction even then-FCC Chair Michael Powell (finally) refused to accept in 2004. Free Press helps you find out if your Rep is a co-sponsor, and thank them or encourage them to become co-sponsors, as the case may be.

Also, I'd like to extend special thanks to all my visitors from opencongress.org over the last few weeks. I hope you got what you were looking for -- and if you didn't, leave a comment about it and I'll do better.

penny rants for Thursday, October 8, 2009.

Huffington Post reports on a "conservative" effort to rewrite the King James Bible to rid it of "liberal bias." Of course you already know that plenty of Bibles out there ain't the King James -- Pat Robertson's infamous The Book from the late 1980s leaps to mind -- but still, the Conservative (sic) Bible Project seems pretty absurd, and Rod Dreher (with whom I normally don't agree very often) actually goes through the trouble of telling us why, and thus does us a tremendous service. I should add that the Conservapedians (sic) display no love of poetry -- they've gone after the Gospel According to St. John, one of the greatest works of literature in the English language, with particular vigor, and of course they're bollocksing it up. I should also add that the King James's New Testament, despite being written by elites desperately seeking to preserve elite legitimacy, somehow makes its main character a man who preached compassion for the poor, and I don't think that's a cautionary tale. And I should also add that society already has a phenomenon that actively misinterprets Jesus's teachings so that He seems to glorify money and earthly power, and it's called the prosperity gospel. Maybe all these folks would like to compare notes before embarking on these big projects.

Meanwhile, the New York Times attempts to describe the ongoing Honduras coup with terms like "bizarre," "unconventional," and "atypical." The article even quotes one observer thus: "This stalemate operates according to its own logic, or lack of logic." But what, exactly, is "illogical" about what's happened? The military booted a leftist leader out of office, and said leader returned to a sympathetic nation's embassy, and neither side is budging. Sounds to me like the Times would rather mystify events than report them. The authors even hold out hope (citing unnamed sources) that Mr. Zelaya will agree to be President again for an hour before ceding to a "caretaker power" that would hold new elections to produce "a new, untainted leader." How exactly has Mr. Zelaya become tainted? The Times does not explain. I mean, I know why Mr. Micheletti would seem "tainted" -- he led the coup, and cracked down on popular demonstrations of support for Mr. Zelaya. Why the democratically-elected (and undemocratically-deposed) leader would be "tainted," I can't explain -- unless it comes down to his leftism. I'd hope the Times would at least have the guts to come out and say such a thing.

Finally, as Gov. Corzine closes in on Mr. Christie in New Jersey's gubernatorial race (even Rasmussen says so!), I decided to find out about the race's "spoiler," Christopher Daggett. Mr. Daggett used to be a Republican, but that means something different in New Jersey than it does in Georgia -- Mr. Daggett has the endorsement of the Sierra Club, for example, and is also pro-choice, pro-gun control, and pro-gay marriage. But his economic platform rings alarm bells. I approve of extending the sales tax to professional services in order to lower property taxes (though he doesn't go far enough), but I don't approve of the sales tax to begin with. Plus he'd cut corporate income taxes --in New Jersey, of all places! Being in the Philly-New York corridor should be incentive enough for businesses! And he'd provide income tax relief only to the top two brackets (on whom Mr. Corzine actually raised taxes during his tenure). And, worst of all, he'd impose a cap on municipal, county and school district budgets based on the Consumer Price Index, in a country where health insurers (for example) routinely raise their rates far above the CPI. My distaste for Mr. Corzine is well-documented here, I think, and I'm not voting Republican any time soon. But were I still an inhabitant of America's Greatest State, I couldn't vote for Mr. Daggett, either.

UPDATE. I forgot to insert a link explaining Mr. Daggett's economic platform (or, more precisely, his tax reform platform); error rectified. I've long held that I should not link to a politician's webpage; basically, I don't like to suggest that I endorse a particular politician (though anyone familiar with this blog knows I like some of them better than others). But I don't endorse Mr. Daggett, so I feel I can use Mr. Daggett's own words to explain why I don't endorse him and still remain consistent with my values.

him, Al Franken!

Sen. Franken (D-MN) confounds the haters yet again by authoring a Defense Appropriations bill amendment (S.A. 2588, amending H.R. 3326) forbidding defense contractors from forcing their employees' sexual assault and discrimination cases into arbitration (vs. a jury trial). Wow! Mr. Franken's only been in the Senate for, like, six minutes and already he's got the whole attach-amendment-to-must-pass-bill thing down. He must have done the extra reading for Sausage Making 101. As you recall, forced arbitration clauses in employment contracts usually lead to decisions in favor of the corporations paying for the forced arbitration, which does not exactly make said arbitration impartial. I guess right-wingers will denounce Mr. Franken's amendment as a threat to national security. Let's unpack that: if Halliburton/KBR can't let Jamie Leigh Jones get gang-banged by her co-workers without being scrutinized by the American justice system, then the terrorists have won. Not terribly convincing as put, is it? Public Citizen provides the contact tool.

Meanwhile, you helped end Defense Department funding for the F-22 earlier this year, but Congress plans to vote on an additional $2.5 billion for C-17 transport planes we don't need and both Mr. Obama and Secretary Gates oppose. Now the C-17 actually is pretty useful moving planes and troops around, but even Tha Dicksta has said we don't need to make any more. Then again, maybe I shouldn't cite him as an authority. How about John McCain, then? He's been a vocal (though not always effective) opponent of wasteful military spending, and he doesn't want to spend any more on C-17s, either. Basically, then, it comes down to what Boeing wants, since they build the planes, and last I looked, corporations can't vote. You know, because they're not people. True Majority has the contact tool. We sure could do a whole lot of economic stimulating with $2.5 billion. Hell, we might even be able to do some effective defense spending with $2.5 billion.

Finally, two shministim (Israeli youth who've refused compulsory service in the Israeli army) have been criss-crossing America telling us why they refuse to take part in the occupation of Palestine, and they're coming to Philadelphia tomorrow, October 7. Actually, they'll speak in two locations: at Swarthmore College from 4-5.30 pm (at Science Center 101) and at UPenn at 7 pm (at the Hall of Flags in Houston Hall). Israeli youth, as you may know, must serve in the military for a few years, so their refusal makes them (also!) greater patriots than I. More information can be found here, as it arrives. I just hope they have time to get from one location to the other -- they should only have to take the Schuykill for a short chunk of that trip, but still.

starving the right beast.

In Pennsylvania, as elsewhere, Republicans use the ongoing economic Armageddon to hold the people hostage to their extremism. The state had a budget deal a few weeks ago, but in the wake of protests by the artistic community against new taxes on musuems and related endeavors, the House revised the budget, for the better: the new budget taxes cigars and smokeless tobacco for the first time, and (more importantly) imposes a severance tax on natural gas drilling, while eliminating the aforementioned art taxes as well as taxes on games of chance run by non-profit groups (vs. games of chance run by casinos). The Republicans object to the new plan, of course, and would hold your government hostage -- unless we can round up a few votes among southeastern Republican Senators, whom Keystone Progress helps you contact.

Meanwhile, President Obama announced new car mileage standards back in May, but the EPA and the Department of Transportation now seek comments on the rules that would impose said standards, so the Union of Concerned Scientists helps you leave comments on said rules. One worries, of course, that the EPA and DOT will develop rules with loopholes -- loopholes like the one that allowed car manufacturers to reclassify certain cars as "light trucks," which helped fuel (so to speak) the SUV boom of the last decade. Or loopholes like the inadequate car weight thresholds that spur automakers to make heavier cars (i.e., the Hummer) that can evade fuel regulation entirely. You get to argue against such loopholes in your comment.

Finally, since Color of Change began its campaign to de-fund Glenn Beck's show, over 60 advertisers have pulled their ads. However, a few major advertisers continue to run ads on Mr. Beck's show, and so Color of Change helps you call them. The recalcitrant corporations include Target, Orbitz, Warner Bros. and Roche (which makes the ACCU-CHEK line of blood sugar monitoring products for diabetics). I may or may not use their calling script; I'm thinking you ought to tell your respondent this: just watch the Glenn Beck show one afternoon -- watch his fake crying, his everyone-even-your-grandmother conspiracy theories, his enemies lists on his big white boards, his fact-free issue discussions -- and ask yourself if you want to be associated with that. Sometimes, even with corporations, it ain't all about money.

super-action Friday!

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has spent at least $2 million, no, not on new staffing to make life easier for small businesses, but on ads claiming that a Consumer Financial Protection Agency would make it harder for (among other people) butchers to extend credit to their customers. That's your U.S. Chamber of Commerce: taking small businesses hostage to get goodies for large corporations. How many times must I tell these pimps! You don't scrap regulation reining in the abuses of large corporations because small businesses might get unfairly caught in the dragnet -- you just make sure small businesses don't get unfairly caught in the dragnet. Of course the U.S. Chamber of Commerce isn't really this stupid; they just think you are. PIRG helps you hand out the beatdowns.

Meanwhile, the House and Senate work to reconcile a Defense Appropriations bill. The House version includes the McGovern/Sestak/Bishop/Lewis amendment that would force the federal government to release names of instructors and attendees at the nefarious WHINSEC, the trade school for torturers and murderers. So SOA Watch urges you to call Carl Levin (D-MI), chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and urge him to ensure said amendment gets into the final version of the bill. Sen. Levin's number is 1.202.224.6221; alternately, you may use the Capitol's toll-free number (1.800.473.6711) and ask to be connected to Sen. Levin's office. You should identify the amendment by its four House co-sponsors (given above), and you may want to add that the amendment asks only for the release of the same information released to human rights organizations from 1946 to 2004. You may even want to add that folks who claim that American security will be compromised, etc., are either lying or paranoid, as we had only one major terrorist attack on American soil during all those years, and that attack happened because the President (sic) didn't do his job, not because thugs got ID'd.

Finally, True Majority provides another contact tool with which you may tell your government to rein in PATRIOT Act abuses. Sen. Leahy (D-VT) has introduced a bill reauthorizing expiring provisions of the PATRIOT Act, but with only a few small improvements; the JUSTICE Act, a Feingold/Durbin production, would do considerably better. When the PATRIOT Act's "sneak and peek" warrants get used far more on drug cases than on terrorism cases -- and, worse, when the federal government doesn't seem upset by that -- you know it's bad. If you didn't already, that is.

penny rants for Thursday, October 1, 2009.

John Perry, at the right-wing website newsmax.com, said on Wednesday that we might be headed toward a peaceful military coup against the Obama Administration -- and he didn't seem terribly upset about that prospect. Newsmax.com soon pulled the commentary from its website, but Alex Pareene at gawker.com reprints it here. As with so many folks who seem to have just discovered patriotism -- if suggesting, and approving of, the inevitability of military intervention against Mr. Obama could be called "patriotism" -- Mr. Perry apparently does not know that Mr. Bush's economy was also marked by "deficits," "unemployment," and actual inflation, that Mr. Bush's economy was also "financially reliant on foreign governments," that Mr. Bush also "wag(ed) undeclared war on the intelligence community," that Mr. Bush also "did not react in time" on 9.11, or that Mr. Bush also witnessed "the horror of major warfare" in two simultaneous regions. For starters. Again I ask: what is getting their shorts in a bunch now? And again I must conclude: what really gets their goat is the restoration of the top tax bracket to its Clinton-era level. Which is nowhere near as high as it was in 1979, or 1959, or 1919. Whiners.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times spots the latest trend in PR spinning: corporations and governments hiring their own journalists, so they can get the story out the way they want it. You mean today's journalists aren't PR flack enough for today's corporations and governments? Yikes, give them an inch. Incredibly, author James Rainey seems willing to give corporate journalists the benefit of the doubt, but not government journalists, without explaining why. Typical. As a journalist himself, Mr. Rainey ought to assume that both corporations and governments will abuse their power and trust, and that only journalists free from the tether of a paycheck to one or the other would be able to account such abuses to the people. Of course, that's also a good argument for non-profit news outlets. (I can't resist noting that the Kings, despite an admirable and honorable history as an NHL franchise, have never been a big fan draw out in El Lay, and hiring a reporter to drum up gossip about Terry Murray's job status ain't gonna fix that.)

Speaking of El Lay, whither the support Roman Polanski has been getting since being arrested in Switzerland so he can finally face trial on a sex-with-minors charge? I was unaware U.S. law had a category called "rape-rape." Years ago, Mr. Polanski plied a resistant 13-year-old girl with drugs and alcohol, had sex with her, plea-bargained his way to what he thought was a lighter jail sentence, then fled the U.S. before trial out of fear that he wouldn't get a lighter jail sentence. And now so many in the Hollywood community (some of whom have worked for or hope to work for Mr. Polanski) are all so-what about it. Friends, this is why middle America really hates Hollywood, and I don't blame them. We prohibit adults from having sex with 13-year-olds for a good reason: they're not equals, and sexual consent is only possible between equals. How is this so-what attitude toward Mr. Polanski's rape-rape any different from the sickness, immorality, and decadence I tabulate regularly in this space?

the anti-enabling machine in full effect!

American Rights at Work focuses its laser beam on the Giumarra Vineyards Corporation, which apparently treats its grape-pickers like dung. According to eyewitness testimony, Giumarra forces grape-pickers to "race" each other in a grape-picking contest in 100-degree heat, then fires the "losers." They also force unpaid "time-outs" on workers who question their supervisors, while denying workers adequate water or shade or non-punitive break time as they work in the heat. And they have also told workers trying to unionize that they'll convert to a wine-making operation, which requires fewer workers. I can't say how serious they were about that one, since Giumarra picks about a tenth of America's table grapes, but still, a threat is a threat. The National Labor Relations Act doesn't cover farm workers, sadly, but it also doesn't prevent good citizens from heaping bad PR on bad corporations. So get heaping.

Meanwhile, right after Congress introduced legislation aiming to strengthen net neutrality rules new FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has announced plans for stronger efforts toward that same end. So Free Press reminds us of their petition supporting net neutrality -- that is (for those of you here for the first time), the principle that you ought to be able to retrieve whatever file you like from the internet at the same speed as any other file, and that no corporation should dictate to you what you get faster. The petition has 1.6 million signers, and Free Press wants to get to 2 million. Don't underestimate the power of a large petition -- that was former Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) you saw standing next to a stack of petitions and letters in 2003 as he co-introduced anti-media consolidation legislation with Sen. Dorgan (D-ND). Net neutrality continues to enjoy actual bipartisan support (vs. the "bipartisanship" you see Mr. Obama constantly chasing in Washington), so pour on the people-power, that's what I say.

Finally, Planned Parenthood urges you to call your Senators and demand that they vote against any amendment to any health care reform bill that denies women the comprehensive health care they need. Maybe I'm not a team player if I mention the word "abortion," but frankly I think a single-payer plan (or whatever passable melange comes out of Congress) should cover abortions, since they're still legal. Certainly I'll mention the words "birth control," and no matter how we feel about it (I'm very much in favor of it, thank you), it's legal, and deserving of coverage under any health-care reform package. If the Jim DeMints and David "Diaperman" Vitters of the world want to keep standing in the way of a woman's access to her own damn good health, let's just call them what they are: haters. And let's stop coddling them, too.