Thieves in the Temple.

we don't serve your country/don't serve your king.

The ignominious Peru NAFTA expansion -- or PFTA (or PFFFFFFTA!) -- legislation comes up for a vote next week. Peru has privatized its social security program, and might be in the mood, one day, to reverse that privatization, because privatization is, you know, a stupid idea -- but Citibank has a stake in keeping Peru's social security private, and could, under a PFFFFFFTA!, sue Peru to do so. That's right, a corporation telling a government what to do, about which not even Benito Mussolini dared to dream. You can see, also, where this might just set a bad precedent -- corporations already have "the rights of people," so said that one corrupt Supreme Court clerk all those years ago and some 300 lousy Supreme Court decisions afterward. Hand out the beatdown here.

NPR suggests in an on-air report that confessions extracted by torture are reliable. Even, like, news. Apparently, three renegade members of Mr. al-Sadr's militia, clearly tortured by said militia, said they were trained in making car bombs and such in Iran. Perhaps not coincidentally, that testimony resembles the "smoking gun" Messrs. Bush and Cheney have repeated suggested would "justify" a pre-emptive attack on Iran. Don't bet Bill O'Reilly will cite this report as evidence that NPR has "mended its liberal ways." And don't expect good Americans will fail to contact the NPR Ombudsman, whose address is ombudsman at npr dot org.

Glenn Greenwald picks apart Senator Rockefeller's justification for giving immunity to telecoms involved in warrantless wiretapping, and ActforChange provides another contact tool with which you may oppose said immunity for said wiretapping. The Rockefeller bill has made its way to the Senate Judiciary Committee, but neither Chairman Leahy (D-VT) nor ranking member Spector (R-PA) seem very happy about it. Mind you, Mr. Spector doesn't break with his party unless it's very safe to do so -- again, what would the vote against Robert Bork in 1987 have been if Mr. Spector hadn't added his admittedly vociferous "no"? Why, 57-43 against, of course, instead of 58-42. So, with that in mind, let's give our Arlen plenty of cover.

it ain't enough.

Congress holds hearings today on the postal rate increase we learned about back in April and which took effect back in July. You know, the one designed by Time-Warner, the one hitting small magazines hard while letting big magazines off easy. FreePress aims to get 100,000 signatures before the hearing, and they're actually pretty close. You can help put them over.

Today would also be a good day to tell your Senators to add funds for food stamps to the Farm bill. The Senate Agriculture Committee upped the monthly food stamp benefit to $12, but the number had been $10 for thirty years, so I suspect that, as Corey Hart used to say, it ain't enough. Resist arguments that suggest that an increase in benefits just invites fraud, because benefit increases and fraud are separate issues, and all good progressives oppose fraud -- perhaps even more so than folks who aren't emotionally invested in the success of the system. Find out more about the Committee's bill here, and the toll-free number, courtesy the AARP, is 1.800.826.9624.

Meanwhile, closer to home, family health premiums have risen by 75% in Pennsylvania, and around a million Pennsylvanians have no health insurance, and insurance companies still have too much leeway in denying coverage to sick folks. HB 1870 will make low-cost insurance available to all state residents and HB 1601 will create more oversight for the insurance industry. Both of these bills have the support of the Governor, and PennPIRG helps you communicate your support to your reps.

the return of Hator!

You may have heard that Tha Bush Mobb nominated a new Attorney General a while back, and that his name is not-Alberto Gonzales. The "liberal" media proclaimed that Mr. not-Gonzales was "non-ideolgical," and would restore pursuit of justice to a department racked by partisanship, never mind whose partisanship that was. But then Mr. not-Gonzales suggested during his Senate confirmation hearing that the President (sic) has extra-legal authority to "defend the country," and when I heard that I knew everything the "liberal" media told me was a crock of horsedoodle. Mr. not-Gonzales also said that he wasn't sure waterboarding was torture because he didn't know enough about waterboarding ("think the Senate will ask about something that everyone's been talking about? Nah"). But, really, his support for President-as-Superchief says it all. Tools for finding your Senator's phone number are, as usual, in the upper left-hand corner.

I've been hearing rumblings that we might not get a Food and Farm bill done this year, and not just because Mr. Bush is suddenly all veto-happy. Senators plan to introduce amendments to the Food and Farm bill that might actually have a positive effect on healthy soil, fresh water supplies, organic farming research, and corporate farms' over-reliance on antibiotics. The Union of Concerned Scientists helps you address these concerns, and others you may have, with your Senators. But Republicans have no excuse to use their filibustering power exclusively at the service of corporate profits. And the "liberal" media has no excuse ignoring when Republicans do that.

Trent Lott: homey for a day.

Senators Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Trent Lott (R-MI) held a press conference condemning the FCC's plan to loosen media consolidation rules without holding extensive public hearings. If that sounds familiar, then you probably remember Messrs. Dorgan and Lott speaking similarly in 2003, each standing next to a stack of petitions and letters opposing the 2003 FCC media consolidation rule changes. Good to have you back, Trent. Common Cause still has the contact tool, and this movement still has the bipartisan support.

Apparently our efforts in the FISA fight are paying off somewhat, as several Democratic Senators now oppose any amnesty for telecoms that helped Mr. Bush's warrantless wiretapping scheme. I presume that Messrs. Dodd et al calculate that lawsuits against telecoms will ultimately bring the whole program down, and certainly it's worth a gamble, given that Democrats are unlikely to have the spine to actually confront the illegality of the program with legislation, and that Republicans, in turn, are unlikely to get mass public support for immunity for big telecoms. I mean, roll that phrase around in your mouth for a second. Doesn't do a damn thing for you, does it? The ACLU helps you tell your Senators to stand against amnesty for big telecoms.

In other news, Mediachannel exposes the extraordinary work of Fox News in connecting a 2003 memo, a comment on a Fox News blog, and an arrest on a suspicion of arson to deduce that al-Qaeda may be responsible for the California wildfires! Fox News reporters more than once said the 2003 memo was from this morning or last week or last summer, but no matter -- bold reporting dares to serve a higher truth than the facts! No doubt the Fox and Friends crew are at this moment hiding behind the "come on, people shouldn't expect hard news from us" argument. One would respond, of course, that people shouldn't expect hysteria, either.

keep yourself alive.

Apparently the House has made some minor changes to the SCHIP extension bill and in doing so has picked up the last dozen-plus override votes. These changes include capping CHIP eligibility at 300 percent of the federal poverty level, phasing out coverage of childless adults in one year rather than two, requiring states to minimize the shift from private insurance coverage, and preventing federal funds from covering undocumented immigrants. The last item is cruel, but overall it's better than I would have expected. And it sounds like they didn't even bother to compromise with Mr. Bush! Which is the tack they should take more often, obviously. The vote's today, and the Quakers' toll-free number is 1.800.965.4701.

Mr. Bush still chases that dream of funneling even more taxpayer funds to his cronies, I mean, building a missile defense shield. And as he's pushed a shield in Eastern Europe, relations with Russia have taken a dive. Now I'm not one to appease tyrants like Mr. Putin, but I'm also not one to pursue dumb ideas, and missile defense, as I've said a million times already, is a dumb idea. At least the House and Senate aren't that keen on it either -- they've cut funds for missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic by around a third. But we could urge them to do more.

Closer to home, you may have heard that Philadelphia Judge Teresa Carr Deni ruled earlier this month that a man who (with three others) gang-raped a prostitute at gunpoint was held by Judge Deni, no, not on the charge of rape, but of "theft of services." Later Judge Deni claimed that the case "minimizes true rape cases and demeans women who are really raped." Hidden message: prostitutes can't be raped, because they're, you know, prostitutes. Sounds like legislating from the bench to me. And, what do you know, Judge Deni is up for retention in two weeks. If you're a Philadelphia resident, you could deny her another six-year term at the ballot box, or you could also write Philadelphia Bar Association Executive Director Kenneth Shear (whose address is kshear at philabar dot org) and ask that the Bar Association, which had already endorsed Judge Deni for retention, reconsider said endorsement.

keep it rollin'.

United for Peace and Justice has organized a nationwide anti-war demonstration in 11 cities, taking place on Saturday, October 27. Click here to find out if an anti-war demonstration will be taking place near you. If one isn't taking place near you, perhaps one of nearly 20 locally-organized "solidarity actions" will take place near you. I'm pleased to see UFPJ has organized one of its 11 demonstrations in New Orleans, as well as another in Jonesborough, Tennessee, an area I know little about, admittedly.

Let's not go absolutely crazy for Chris Dodd: his main issue with the FISA bills in the Senate is telecom immunity, not "basket" warrants. However, apparently the Senate at large has decided to grant Tha Bush Mobb's request for full telecom immunity (in exchange for some documents relating to the warrantless wiretapping program, I'm told), so we've got to get busy on that. (The ACLU also provides a tool with which you may petition Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) to reject amnesty for telecoms involved in warrantless wiretapping. Mr. Rockefeller has, perhaps not coincidentally, received a cash infusion from big telecom executives this year.)

And finally: will the "liberal" media shut up already about Rudy Giuliani's "rooting for the Red Sox"? (Scroll down to the item titled "Pander Bear Alert.") "Seriously, this is why some are so cynical about politicians"? Is it, "seriously"? No, people are cynical about politicians because politicians break their promises approximately as often as they breathe, and because their broken promises don't just cause disappointment and betrayal, but also suffering and death. To think that rooting for a sports team should be a barometer of anything, other than "liberal" media stupidity.

join together!

As we discussed here a few days back, FCC Chair Kevin Martin plans to loosen media consolidation rules, which is bad, and plans to have little public comment upon said rules, which is worse. I have two contact tools: one from FreePress and one from Common Cause. Remember: Kevin Martin has little conservative support on this issue. The only folks who support Kevin Martin on this issue are corporatists and their apologists. It is true that corporatists and their apologists comprise most if not all of the "liberal" media. But we will prevail somehow.

In a similar vein, Verizon and AT&T have been in trouble lately for suppressing liberal advocacy and silencing anti-Bush lyrics, respectively, and Comcast is in the soup now for secretly blocking file-sharing on its servers (as a "bandwidth issue" yeah sure). But, again, left and right have joined hands: NARAL's Nancy Keenan and the Christian Coalition's Roberta Combs co-wrote a Washington Post editorial last week calling for Congressional hearings, and my homey, Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, echoed that call this week. This will be another contact tool brought to you by FreePress.

Meanwhile, closer to home, the Pennsylvania House State Government Committee has apparently gutted HB 443, the Open Records Bill, so that it's now wearing a goatee and heiling Captain Kirk. Among the many things the Open Records Bill does not do? It does not give the Office of Public Records oversight over the legislature, state attorney general, auditor general or treasurer. That's not good. But we're not just about things the bill does not do, we're also about things the bill does -- like permit the governor and not the Ethics Commission to appoint the director of the oversight office, or let public officials who break the law pay their penalties with tax dollars. That's right, HB 443 would force you and I to pay up when some politician or other breaks the law. And, as a famous philosopher might say, that sucks. Common Cause helps you reduce the suckitude of this bill.

Finally: everybody knows I like Mike Huckabee, right? Or, at least, I want to like him. Or, maybe it's that I like him in spite of the fact that I think all his policy prescriptions are wrong and I would never vote for him. So maybe this reminder is more for me than for you: Mike Huckabee needs some more schoolin'. It isn't just that almost none of the Declaration of Independence's signers were clergymen; it's also that right-wing efforts to assert that the Founders were overbearing in their Christianity is a fantasy, and it actually insults our traditions. Anyone remember what the Pilgrims were running from? Anyone remember why Lord Baltimore went to Maryland? Anyone remember why the Puritans came here and then why they kicked Roger Williams out? We didn't found this nation so we could be more Christian than someone else. We founded this nation in large part so we could be free from state religious persecution. And "state religious persecution" doesn't mean being told "happy holidays" at Target. "State religious persecution" is, like, when you get killed or your property taken because you're not the right kind of whatever. That's what the founders wanted to prevent when they wrote the Constitution, and it's what Mike Huckabee seems to want to bring back.

penny rants for the day of October 22, 2007.

What Michelle Malkin did was not "journalism." "(A)sk(ing) the tough questions the mainstream media won’t ask" would be the beginning of journalism, and certainly journalism does not end with flinging innuendo against the wall and seeing what sticks. Generally, journalists ought to be able to sift facts from innuendo. Thus, it's not "journalism" to suggest that some houses in the Frost neighborhood are worth a mint, when at least in theory houses almost everywhere are worth a mint now. Nor is it "journalism" to link to a claim that the Frosts could get health insurance for half the price they say, when said claim doesn't take the Frost children's obviously unique needs into account. And it's not "journalism" to ask "How many working poor couples get wedding announcements in the New York Times?" without noting that the marriage took place in 1992 and that Mr. Frost has locally-famous family members. And, finally, it's not "journalism" to report items that might be upsetting to Ms. Malkin and her audience (Mr. Frost's co-worker believes in socialized medicine and opposes the Iraq war! Mr. Frost's house has an 01-20-09 bumper sticker!) but which are useless in proving that Mr. Frost is cheating the government, or that the SCHIP extension bill Mr. Bush vetoed is bad public policy. If Ms. Malkin had merely said that using children to defend public policy is exploitative, I wouldn't be writing this paragraph. But smearing the Frost family with circumstantial evidence, if we could even call it evidence, is not journalism, but gossip. In a healthy society, we could tell the difference. In this immoral and decadent society, Ms. Malkin will keep getting away with it.

Meanwhile, Bob Novak reports poll data suggesting that regular church-going Republicans still like Rudolph Giuliani better than they like other Republican Presidential candidates, despite Mr. Giuliani's positions on hot-button social issues. Noting that James Dobson and other Religious-Right heavyweights recently met in Salt Lake City to discuss supporting a third-party candidate if Mr. Giuliani wins the nomination, Mr. Novak writes, in his best reporter's-understatement manner, that "(t)he Gallup data suggest that Dobson and the Salt Lake City group may be out of touch with rank-and-file churchgoers." Yes, they may just be! Republican pollster Frank Luntz takes it one step further: he says that Mr. Giuliani "has turned security into a social issue," which is not exactly what I said a few months ago, but close enough.

Here's a shock: despite the "liberal" media's obsession with Hillary Clinton's ability to "polarize" voters, a whole boatload of other candidates, what do you know, might be more polarizing than she. 41 percent of respondents in an ABC News/Washington Post poll say they'd never vote for Ms. Clinton, but an astounding 57% say they'd never vote for Mitt Romney (soon to have his very own campaign website at nochance2008.org!), and an almost equally-astounding 54% would never vote for Ole Fred, either. Moreover, John Edwards, John McCain and Rudolph Giuliani all seem to be a tad more polarizing than Ms. Clinton. I don't think Hillary Clinton polarizes voters, anyway -- I think the "liberal" media polarizes voters against her by repeating every charge from the right-wing noise machine, regardless of the charge's merit. I mean, there are plenty of charges we could make stick to Hillary Clinton, but the people are not served by hearing Sean Hannity recycle Vince Foster stories and then hearing the "liberal" media "report" the recycled Vince Foster stories again.

this is not America.

The House votes soon on H.R. 3773, the RESTORE Act, which really isn't much of an improvement over the warrantless-wiretapping rubber-stamping Congress did in August. RESTORE doesn't include immunity for big corporations that helped Tha Bush Mobb's unconstitutional wiretapping program, but it could, if certain Senators get their grubby mitts on it (though Senator Dodd has vowed to place a hold on the FISA bill in the Senate, because it includes such retroactive immunity). And RESTORE also doesn't mandate, as it must, that the President (sic) get individual warrants for individual terrorist suspects. "Blanket" warrants permit the government to say "we're looking for al-Qaeda" and suck up all international emails and phone calls, and then store them forever. Why, that would only be a good idea if the government were going to declare certain folks and/or groups to be terrorists retroactively. The ACLU helps you call your Reps.

Congress still plans to bail out the nuclear power industry in a pending energy bill. I'm not implacably opposed to nuclear power, but I am implacably opposed to welfare handouts for corporations that can plenty well stand on their own. Corporations have for decades hindered development of solar and wind power, so that's where government assistance is needed, regardless of the small amount of attention big corporations have paid to renewable energy in the last half-decade or so. Plus, government assistance for renewable energy will create jobs. Corporations love to tell us they can't move forward because progress means fewer jobs -- and then they cut jobs anyway when they feel like giving their stock prices a shot in the arm. Actforchange has the petition.

UPDATE. I've been writing posts the night before I post them, so they occasionally come up with the wrong date. Error corrected.

boplicity.

The Democratic leadership in Congress has decided to vote on H.R. 3688, the Peru Free Trade Agreement, by the end of this month. Hopefully, the words "free trade" prepare you for what I'm about to tell you: Big Oil has had its sights on Peru for some time now, hoping to drill in the Peruvian Amazon rain forest, and they don't want the Peruvian government to get in the way. Indigenous Peruvians are in Washington right now making their case, which must be quite a jarring experience for our representatives, since they usually only talk to people like themselves. Anyway, Public Citizen helps you stand with the Peruvians.

The Military Commissions Act is now a full year old, and the Democratic leadership seems anxious to let it stand until they have, say, 490 House seats and 92 Senate seats, plus the Presidency, of course. Then they'll do something. In the meantime, the ACLU asks you to ask your Congressfolk where they stand on warrantless surveillance, habeus corpus, Guantanamo Bay, and torture and extraordinary rendition. Presumably you'll get an answer, since your Congressfolk pay people to answer letters. And remember: if doing the right thing were the same as doing the expedient thing, democracy would not require so much maintenance.

Today is the day the House votes to override Mr. Bush's veto of SCHIP reauthorization. Those Republicans who've sworn to uphold their Personal Lord and Savior's veto tell us they're not going to let themselves be diverted from their mission by the knowledge that they're going to make more children sick and/or poor -- though you'd be right to ask what mission, exactly, would overriding that veto divert them from. Does "we must avoid expanding government health care programs" make you feel like you're hearing that Henry V speech? You can call your House Rep using any of the tools in the upper left-hand corner, or you can use OMB Watch's contact tool.

I predict a riot.

FCC Chair Kevin Martin got another few hundred thousand comments opposing media consolidation, but what does he care? Word on the street is that he may schedule an FCC vote to loosen media ownership rules in less than two months, and he's being tight-lipped about what those rule changes might be exactly, so we'll go to work on Congress, who can at the least compel Mr. Martin to reveal what rule changes the FCC plans to vote upon, well in advance of said vote so the public can properly scrutinize them. You might also want to remind Congress that groups across the ideological spectrum oppose further media consolidation -- it ain't just all my groups, it's also the Christian Coalition and the NRA. Congress has nothing to lose. What the hell are they waiting for?

In advance of the orgy of consumption that we've made our celebration of the birth of Christ, Consumers Union provides a contact tool in which we demand that the things we buy don't hurt or kill us. Among CU's demands, which may also be your own: banning lead in all toys; raising testing standards and funding more enforcement of said standards; requiring that independent, government-certified inspectors ensure that imports meet U.S. safety standards; requiring retailers to remove recalled products from shelves promptly; and removing the word "voluntary" from corporate recalls. Mr. Bush believes that corporations can police themselves, or, possibly, he believes that if he screws up enough he can force people to trust corporations before they'll trust the government. Well, he take that to St. Peter if he likes. I believe that we the people must police the corporations, and government regulation is the best tool we have for that.

UPDATE. FCC Chair Kevin Martin proposes new rule changes, in which the FCC would (among other things, I presume) permit corporations to own both newsprint and broadcast media in the same market. Being, as I am, an implacable foe of a corporation owning more than one medium in any and all markets, of course I oppose this rule change. The public commenting process will apparently begin in November, but Sen. Byron Dorgan (MH-ND) predicts a "firestorm" of hearings in Congress.

here come the warm jets.

The House will vote on overriding Mr. Bush's SCHIP veto either tomorrow or Thursday, and here are the relevant digits: 1.800.965.4701 (courtesy the American Friends Service Committee), 1.800.828.0498, 1,800.614.2803, and 1.866.340.9281 (the last three courtesy of the People's Email Network). The People's Email Network also provides this contact tool. The relevant House bill number is H.R. 976, and the name of the bill is the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act. Also, see how your Rep voted last time here; it might give you something else to talk about. The last House vote was about two dozen votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to override; perhaps, after the right wing's swiftboating of the family of 12-year-old SCHIP recipient (and Democratic spokesman) Graeme Frost, a few more Republican Congressfolk will be disgusted enough to change their vote. I'd have preferred it didn't come to that, though.

Usually I put the regressive tax alerts first, but the two-tiered flat tax put forward by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) (scroll down to the item about the "Alternative Maximum Tax") isn't as close to a vote as the SCHIP veto override. Rep. Ryan's plan would, guess what, repeal the Alternative Mininum Tax (which doesn't creep into the lower brackets as much as they say), get rid of most deductions and loopholes (including those that benefit low-income families), and create two tax brackets, 10% and 25%, the latter of which begins at $100,000. It's not just that the richest among us get another six- or eight-percentage-point windfall, when each of their percentage points represents more money than any of yours. It's that, guess what, almost no one but the rich will be paying significantly less in income taxes if this bill becomes law. If you don't believe me, check out the IRS's own income tax schedule and do the math. The bill is a damn monstrosity. Funny thing, though: if you call your Reps now, using the tools in the upper-left-hand corner -- or, possibly, if you mention it during your SCHIP call -- they'll know we're watching. They might even be surprised.

this Congress is finally getting something done!...oh, forgot.

The House passed a bill to stop the privatization of IRS collection services; the Senate may consider a bill to do the same (S. 335, sponsored by my homey, Byron Dorgan), but if it passes, Mr. Bush plans to veto it, claiming that privatization of tax collection brings in more revenue. The numbers, as usual, don't support Mr. Bush's fantasies: even if private tax collectors brought in an extra $32 million in 2007, as some Republicans claim, that's about a quarter of what they hoped. And, with private tax collectors keeping about $8 million as a commission, and with start-up costs at about $71 million, and with a ten-year projected total cost of $1 billion, well, unless you're John Podhoretz, you can do the math. Somehow Mr. Bush believes that hiring more federal tax collectors just wouldn't be effective, or will turn us all into pinkos, or terrorists, or something. And all that's before I even have a chance to mention that privatizing IRS collection services is a privacy boondoggle waiting to happen. Use the tools in the upper left-hand corner to tell your Senators, "surprise, pimps!"

penny rants for the day of October 14, 2007.

Don't know about you, but I'm quite tired of those VISA ads shown during football games. You know, the ones that suggest that folks who pay cash instead of using their credit/check/debit cards are grinding some grand ballet to a halt. Funny thing is, on those occasions I pay for something with a VISA card in a brick-and-mortar store, I wait for a receipt, which no one in these ads ever does. And another thing: in the Total Information Awareness era, I'm paying with cash whenever I can. If you're in line behind me and you don't like it, suck it in. Twelve more seconds in line ain't gonna kill you. But the government knowing exactly what you're doing when you're doing it since the day you were born and being able to retroactively designate your favorite bookseller a "terrorist organization"? That might kill you, and it ain't as far-fetched as you might think.

Here's an interesting development: a former Qwest Communications executive, currently appealing an insider trading conviction, suggests that since Qwest wouldn't take part in Tha Bush Mobb's warrantless wiretapping program before 9.11, Qwest lost lucrative government contracts. Could it be (as other bloggers already have suggested) that not only was Tha Bush Mobb's warrantless wiretapping program unrelated to 9.11 but was no help in stopping 9.11? It could be, sure, but so far we only have the word of an executive making this accusation to stay out of jail, and said executive hasn't specified the NSA warrantless wiretapping program as the illegal program Qwest wouldn't take part in, though that's what we all think it is. Hopefully we'll be able to follow this story.

Did Rudy Giuliani really suggest that all lawsuits are frivolous? Yes, he really did suggest that all lawsuits are frivolous, whether he wants to admit it to himself or not. Mr. Giuliani claimed, at the MSNBC Republican Presidential candidate debate the other night, that "2.2 percent of our GDP now, is spent on all these frivolous lawsuits," when actually, according to the 2005 study to which he apparently refers, 2.2% of U.S. GDP got spent on all lawsuits, and said study didn't measure how much GDP was spent on "frivolous" lawsuits. Oops. Given that a 2004 Public Citizen study suggested that corporations filed lawsuits four times as often as individuals (and filed frivolous lawsuits more than four times as often as individuals), how far does Mr. Giuliani want to take this argument? And how far will the "liberal" media let him take it?

The USDA can't determine how an unapproved genetically-altered variety of rice managed to taint long-grain rice -- at least partly due to a Republican Congress's refusal to fund even weakened tracking, regulation and enforcement efforts, not to mention the Republican executive's (sic) distaste for his Constitutional function, enforcing the law. Of course the Post, though a putative bastion of "liberal bias," doesn't mention the possibility that the government's responsible until paragraph 9, and without mentioning the word "Republican." Didn't we warn that this kind of thing would happen if we let corporations plant genetically-altered crops willy-nilly? Yes, I do believe we did. Repeatedly. But working for Mr. Bush means never having to do anything right, as long as you make your cronies money. It certainly doesn't mean, you know, keeping maps of where genetically-altered crops get planted.

"give me justice, but not yet."

The Democrats are preparing to cave on warrantless wiretapping! Yay Democrats! Now all future Presidents will tremble before People Power! Seriously, the ACLU recommends that we support Rep. Holt's FISA Modernization bill instead of the RESTORE Act, because the Holt bill mandates warrants for each individual target, versus the group or "basket" warrants mandated by the RESTORE Act. (A warrant for "all al-Qaeda operatives" sure does sound like a warrant that could be abused, don't it?) Though both bills may be improvements, what the hell is wrong with Mr. Bush having up to 72 hours to get a warrant after beginning eavesdropping? Is he that bad at catching terrorists? Actually, if 9.11 is any evidence, he is -- and he could have caught them without warrantless wiretapping. The ACLU helps you call your Rep.

Meanwhile, the House leadership has left transgendered folks out of the legendary Employment Non-Discrimination Act that they might have a snowball's chance in hell of passing now. Why? To get the votes of recalcitrant Democrats, I've heard -- Democrats who say, like John Edwards says on gay marriage, I just can't go there yet. I say let those Blue Dogs assert that transgendered folks are less folk than gay folk, or explain why transgendered folks shouldn't be protected from job discrimination, since, whether they like it or not, whether they think so or not, they assert just that by their opposition. Call your Rep at 202.224.3121, or use the ACLU's contact tool. You know, I think all this stuff is damn simple.

Thought I forgot about SCHIP? Not this liberal! And did Mr. Bush really say, one more time, that people without health care can just go to the Emergency Room? Right. Because ER care for a child's cold isn't, like, twenty times more expensive than primary care or anything. Because most Americans aren't a few ER bills away from bankruptcy or anything. Because we don't all wind up paying more as a result of the uninsured in the ER or anything. Oh, now I get it: Mr. Bush doesn't bear the cost of anything at all, especially his own disasters. He should be sentenced to a level of hell where he must feel the pain he's inflicted on everyone else. Use the tools in the upper left-hand corner to refill the coffers of your representative's courage, as it were.

light posting notice.

I'll have some alerts up tomorrow, but I'm going to be in a light posting mode for a while, as I struggle to adapt to a new shift at work.

It may seem like moving from third to second isn't much of an adjustment, but the problem is that I remember too well how to get through the night.

mission of Burma.

Been following events in Myanmar (ex-Burma) lately? We now have more evidence of military action against the good citizens of Myanmar than we have against the Iran Revolutionary Guard -- firing on peaceful demonstrators, herding of monks into concentration camps, folks burned alive in crematoriums and/or found floating face-down in the river. The People's Email Network rushes in with a three-point plan of action: declare the military dictatorship in Myanmar a terrorist organization; freeze the dictatorship's assets; install an international U.N. peacekeeping force. Myanmar has powerful friends, but we are powerful people.

Oh, and Mr. Bush vetoed SCHIP expansion yesterday. Tools are, as always, in the upper left-hand corner.

how to win the Iraq war.

One, institute a draft, so we can triple our fighting forces in Iraq. General Shinseki said we'd need that large a force to lock Iraq down, and he was fired (or "forced into retirement" or whatever) for it, so he must have been on to something.

Two, institute a massive income tax increase on the top one-fifth of one percent of the population. From 33% to 93% should do it. One ought to fund a war one wants to fight, and one ought to fund it at the expense of those who'd benefit the most financially therefrom.

Chickenhawks who do not have the will to do these things can take their "traitor" and "defeatocrat" and "surrender monkey" and "helper of terrorists" and "objectively pro-Saddam" and cram it.

UPDATE. Paragraph one rewritten, so you don't think General Shinseki called for a draft, which as far as I know he didn't (he just thought we should move a lot more troops into Iraq).

gangsta gangsta.

The ACLU begins its three-week drive to flood the Capitol switchboard with anti-warrantless wiretapping calls. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's digits are 202.225.4965; Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's digits are 202.224.3542. Also, this ACLU site can help you find your own Rep's digits. What are our demands? Roll call! That Congress not act on FISA until Tha Bush Mobb hands over NSA wiretapping program documents; that any FISA legislation must restore judicial oversight and privacy rights; that the government should only receive information it is authorized by law to intercept, and -- this is important, law-and-order types -- new FISA legislation must not grant amnesty to corporations that willfully provided Americans' phone records to the government in violation of the 4th Amendment. "They didn't know they were breaking the law" is no excuse. I knew they were breaking the law, and I'm just a guy with the word "technician" in his job title. (ActforChange provides an email tool, as well.)

On a lighter note, check out this fresh new video, called "Made You Watch" and rapped from the point of view of Bill O'Reilly. We knew Mr. O'Reilly was more like a gangsta rapper than he'd like us to believe, just like we knew his obsession with liberal celebrities is really all about the fame he thinks the "liberal" establishment has cheated him. Still, dig the beats, dig the rhymes. My only complaint is that the composition should be a minute or two longer. (H/t Mediachannel.)