Thieves in the Temple.

readings for Saturday, February 27, 2010.

America's Last Journalist, Greg Palast, describes Liberia's efforts to fight "vulture funds." Vulture funds sound pretty ominous, and, in fact, they are -- speculators buy up poor government debt, often for a fraction of said debt, and then sue in court to be paid. And often these speculators wait until the government is in dire straits to sue -- as with Messrs. Straus and Hermann in 2002, who sued Liberia in U.S. court the very same week Liberia's capitol was under siege from rebels. You may be surprised to learn that the vulture fund (or, as its practitioners call it, the "distressed debt" or "special situations" fund) came about in the 1950s as a response to an actual injustice perpetrated by sovereign governments -- governments used to default on loans with impunity, and buying up government debt and then suing for its recovery is, in theory, a good way to prevent governments from abusing their creditors. But in practice, vulture funds seem to go after the weakest governments -- governments weakened, I feel compelled to add, by international lending policies.

Meanwhile, the Electronic Freedom Foundation has published a report called "Digital Books and Your Rights," which confronts issues of privacy, transparency, ownership, and censorship as they relate to digital books. I don't think digital books will ever really replace books you can hold in your hand, but I could be wrong, and with the ascent of Google Books and the Nook and Kindle I could be wrong pretty quickly. Furthermore, corporations tend to create a lot of confusion about "rights" every time a new technology comes along. The rights of privacy (i.e., the reader's privacy, not the corporation's) should be exactly what Michael Chabon says they should be, regardless of what new trinket comes along. And the "Digital Books Checklist" should help clarify our minds about that.

Finally, Progressive States gives us a report entitled "No Crisis in Public Retirement Systems: Debunking the Hype and the Attacks on Employee Benefits." You will find many points worth repeating, over and over again, to the corporate Useful Idiots who whinge on about Social Security (for example) being "on the brink" of "insolvency": like, that pension plans do better when they're invested conservatively just as their designers intended, or that most public employees do not live high on the hog when they retire, or that fairly common-sense reforms (even against worker abuses, which do exist) can solve many of the problems pension funds do have. A caveat, though: the attacks aren't going to stop. Paul Craig Roberts, America's Last Conservative, has often suggested that pension funds comprise the last source of equity in America, and when the corporations run out of money for good, they will raid them. So it's not exactly that there's "no crisis" in public retirement systems, then, but that the "crisis" emanates precisely from the thugs who cry wolf the loudest.

Linkswarm 2: swarmier than previous!

Apparently Sen. Bunning has decided to hold up a one-month extension of unemployment benefits that will otherwise run out on Sunday. You know, "to prove a point to the American people," presumably about fiscal responsibility. At least he's working a little harder on his filibuster than Senators generally do. Mr. Bunning likes to make like he's this big fiscal hawk, but (to be kind!) his record on fiscal responsibility doesn't match that persona: Mr. Bunning voted for the budget-busting tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, voted for the off-budget Iraq war, even voted for the underfunded Medicare part D drug benefit and Mr. Bush's underfunded "No Child Left Behind" law -- all presumably because the "point" he wanted to "prove" "to the American people" is that it's OK when a Republican busts the budget. His lone vote on the side of the angels during the Bush years? His bailout vote, of course. But you need to earn the moral authority to get all high-and-mighty about spending, and he hasn't. Mr. Bunning may be reached at 1.202.224.4343, if you'd like to call him out on his hypocrisy.

Also of a more pressing nature than usual: appliance manufacturer Whirlpool has taken $19 million in taxpayer dollars to "create jobs," and then not only announced the closure of its Evansville, IN plant, displacing 1,100 workers, but promptly shipped those jobs to Mexico. It's bad enough they're shipping American jobs away from the country, but to do that while taking taxpayer money -- that is, your money -- to "create jobs"? Now that's class! The punchline? A labor union, namely IUE-CWA Local 808, represents those Evansville workers -- and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka will be in Evansville today, along with a contingent of labor leaders and workers, to protest Whirlpool's decision. You may join them in a little "force message multiplication" exercise by calling Whirlpool at 1.800.705.7083 and telling them to keep the Evansville refrigerator plant open. Not that we have decision-making power over the organization, though I don't think any Whirlpool products will find their way to my house anytime soon. But corporations will respond to bad PR.

I got yr "nanny state" right here!

George W. Bush's final middle finger to the American people, the TARP bailout, is now almost a year and a half old. The banks that were "too big to fail" still haven't gotten the economy moving with their unearned taxpayer-backed largesse, yet according to the New York state comptroller, the financial sector handed out over $20 billion in bonuses in 2009, up 17% from last year, and the financial sector's profits may top $50 billion. Worse, Congress's meager attempts at financial regulatory overhaul have stalled before a Senate whose members say the House bill would create a "nanny state." Our financial overlords act worse than spoiled rotten little brats, so reining them in with a "nanny state" would, literally, be a compliment to them. Consumers Union provides a helpful list of demands.

Meanwhile, Free Press -- you remember, one of the gaggle of groups that Media Institute fool cited as being part of the "religion of 'media reform'"? -- helps you protest outrageous "early termination fees" on cell phones. Pretty "paleoleftist" of them, eh? Seriously, Verizon now charges a $350 early termination fee on its more upscale phones. At that price, you'd think the process of terminating one's cell phone contract would involve monks with quill pens having to change contracts by hand, but no, Verizon told the FCC it hiked its ETFs on "advanced devices" partly because it subsidizes cell phone sales and partly because it needs to pay certain expenses associated with said advanced devices. I'm not hearing "terminating your contract is such a hardship on us that we have to charge an exorbitant fee" in any of that. I'm not hearing where "you must buy this phone with this service provider" was Newton's Fourth Law, either. (Yes, I'm looking at you, too, iPhone.)

Finally, CREDO helps you tell the Obama Administration to do something about the Atlantic bluefin tuna, currently being fished into near-extinction just like the Atlantic cod. Since bluefin tuna endangerment is a long-standing problem, I can only imagine that the Obama Administration hasn't acted already because a) they don't want to step on the toes of the fishing industry or b) they figure that Japan, the world's largest consumer of bluefin tuna, will ignore any and all international mandates and thus action would be useless. If so, I would respond by saying a) that's cowardly, and b) that's cowardly. Nations and industries can still be shamed into doing the right thing. If they can't, then we'd have to give up fighting for things like democracy, freedom, and community. And, ah, we're not giving up fighting for these things. Not on my watch.

how to use the word "bailout" properly.

S. 2977, a Lindsey Graham (R-SC) production, would prevent the Justice Department from using funds to prosecute the alleged 9.11 masterminds in federal courts. Mr. Graham didn't have much to say about all that when Tha Bush Mobb tried and convicted over 300 terrorism suspects in federal courts, but now that the President has a D after his name, and now that his party smells blood after the pants-on-fire bomber, he's happy to indulge in fearmongering. Mr. Graham has been better than that -- he was the first man to condemn the Abu Ghraib abuses -- so I'm more disappointed in him than I would be in, say, Mike Johanns (who's one of the other 27 co-sponsors). Are we so weak a country that we can't try accused terrorists in federal courts? I sure as hell hope not. I do know that the folks who talk the loudest about getting-tough-on-terrorism seem to get all weak-kneed when it comes time to test our cherished values. The ACLU helps you hand out the beatdowns.

Meanwhile, Mr. Obama plans to triple the loan guarantee program for nuclear power plant construction, to $54 billion. The good folks at Public Citizen are calling this a "bailout," and it's actually worse than a bailout: some banks have paid back TARP funds, and we presume (at least officially) that the rest will also pay TARP funds back eventually, but what happens to corporations that take federal money under this program, fail to build a working reactor, and default on the loan? They don't have to pay the money back. Would you stand for that, if it were your money? Oh, wait: it is your money. Would it be piling on to mention that solar and wind power also would satisfy our craving for low carbon emissions while satisfying our need to, you know, have an energy plan that doesn't suck, or keep terrorists from having targets to hit? Public Citizen helps you call your Reps and Senators.

Finally, witness this fecal blast from one Patrick Maines, President of something called The Media Institute. The problems with "The Intrinsic Menace in 'Media Reform'" go beyond Mr. Maines's bad jokes, his multitudinous unproven assertions, or even his own little pot-kettle-black problem with nefarious corporate influence. The man shifts his aim like a drunk with a rifle, so that he might convince you that people with widely divergent views (I've never advocated bailouts for newspapers "so they can survive," for example) are all part of the same "menace." And his "rhetorical question" at the end isn't even rhetorical -- we just had a GOP government, and when we mobilized against their plans to loosen media consolidation rules, we won. It took time, but we won. Telling, I'd say, that Mr. Maines seems to forget that even in the most politically adverse times this is still a democracy, in which we might not only protest a government's actions but thwart them. Telling, also, that he seems to forget that people across the ideological spectrum support media reform.

extending unemployment benefits and job programs, plus more Estate Tax foolery.

Did you know today was National Call-in Day to Save Jobs and Protect the Jobless? Well, now you do. About protecting the jobless: long-term unemployment benefits, as you may know, will expire at the end of this month, and contrary to what you may have heard, unemployment benefits do stimulate the economy -- after all, folks on unemployment don't have the luxury of stuffing money in their mattress; they spend it. On stuff. For their survival. And that money goes into their local communities. That doesn't mean we should all get unemployment benefits whether we're unemployed or not, but it does mean the folks who need it ought to get it, especially in a culture that rewards corporations for cutting jobs. Now, about saving jobs: federal aid to states to help pay for Medicaid, education, and such will also expire soon, and state cuts in those things mean, you guessed it, more people lose their jobs. It's enough to make you think the financial sector meltdown is really just one big wealth-redistribution-to-the-rich scheme. You can call your Senators using this Jobs for America Now contact tool or use an AFSCME-provided toll-free line, 1.888.460.0813. You can also call using the tools in the upper left-hand corner of this page.

Oh, but that's not all we can do for the less fortunate today. Rep. McDermott (D-WA) has introduced H.R. 4564, the Emergency Jobs Program and Assistance for Families Extension Act, which would extend for one year the TANF Emergency Contingency Fund (or ECF), which would otherwise expire on September 30. This isn't some handout for doing nothing -- among other things, the ECF supports summer jobs programs for low-income youth and other programs that help folks enter the labor market in 21 states and the District of Columbia. ECF does provide some cash assistance to the unemployed and poor, but it's not a handout with which anyone can sit back and play video games and knock back brews all day -- it's help, which, again, goes to the people who need it and who'll spend it and who'll pump that money back in their local economies. NETWORK, the National Catholic Social Justice Lobby, helps you ask your Representative to co-sponsor H.R. 4564.

Washington state residents, take note: U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D) is floating a proposal that would permit rich folks to pre-pay their Estate Tax obligation while they're still alive, but at a lower rate. That rate would be 35%, versus the 45% apparently favored by Mr. Obama, or the 55% rich folks would have to pay starting next year. Congress failed to act on an Estate Tax "compromise" or "reform" at the end of 2009, so the Estate Tax disappears for this entire calendar year, and now the usual gang of suspects (roll call! Kyl! Lincoln! Baucus! Grassley!) are trying to use that disappearance as a wedge to get a lower Estate Tax for future years. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm prepared to live without it for a year just to get the old 55% rate back. You have to think long-term here. So United for a Fair Economy helps Washington state residents sign on to a letter to Sen. Cantwell asking her to abandon her pre-payment initiative. Good luck to you and God bless you.

UPDATE. "Ask your representative to co-sponsor," I meant! To! For the want of a nail, and all that. Error corrected.

monday morning.

"Dick Cheney confessed to a war crime. Prosecute him." That's CREDO's tagline in their latest action alert, in which we call for Attorney General Holder to prosecute Mr. Cheney immediately. The "confession" came during a Valentine's Day interview with ABC's This Week. "I was a big supporter of waterboarding," Mr. Cheney said on that day. I don't doubt that waterboarding is a crime, but what about what he said later in the interview? Regarding the infamous memos written by Messrs. Yoo and Bybee, he said "I thought it was important for some senior person in the administration to stand up and defend those people who’d done what we asked them to do." What did you ask them to do, sir? Write memos that justified defying the Geneva Conventions, and therefore U.S. law? Mr. Cheney is normally a very precise speaker, and I suppose he'll say he just "asked" them to look into whether said law barred "enhanced interrogation techniques." Then he'll be in the unusual position of defending people based on their intentions and not their actions. Which wouldn't be very conservative of him. (If you want to send Mr. Holder a more detailed complaint than the CREDO petition allows, here's the Justice Department's contact page.)

Meanwhile, both ABC and NBC have recently run rather one-sided reports supporting the new nuclear plant Mr. Obama has proposed building in Georgia. ABC shut up one source's safety concerns with a quick "(n)uclear power advocates say" quotation, but NBC did even worse: they suggested nuclear power plant issues might well be in the past, when the good residents drinking water near the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant would tell you differently. And NBC is owned by General Electric, which might have interests in a nuclear power industry and which has done business with the company planning to build the Georgia plant. I suppose my right-leaning friends would tell me are you really going to assert that everyone who owns someone else, or does business with someone else, might have a conflict of interest? To which I'd answer yes, they might, and if NBC really had nothing to hide, they'd have mentioned any ties to the Georgia corporation in the report. (Of course, I'd also answer that no corporation should own any other corporation.) And all that's before we get to the question of whether loan guarantees are a good use of taxpayer money. The FAIR link above contains contact information for ABC and NBC.

California residents, take note: in an incredible burst of chutzpah, Anthem Blue Cross wants to raise health care rates 39 percent in California for folks not covered by group rates. Who does that affect most? You guessed it, small businesses and independent contractors. Have I heard protests from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, nominally the champion of small businesses, about this? No, I have not. It gets better: they might want to raise rates again in the middle of the year. Does it get even better? Yes, it gets even better: Anthem Blue Cross spends less than 80 cents out of every dollar they collect on actual medical care, whereas rival insurer Kaiser, for example, spends 91 cents on the dollar. Does it get even better than that? Hold on to your hat: Anthem's parent company is WellPoint, the corporation that has locked horns with state regulators in Maine and Indiana over rate hikes despite enjoying an eightfold increase in profit for the last three months of 2009. Apparently HHS Secretary Sebelius sent Anthem a letter asking them to justify the rate hike, and Anthem has responded by putting the rate hike on hold -- which is nice, but CalPIRG sees an opportunity to push for legislation requiring insurers to submit rate increases to regulators for review before they go into effect, and I don't blame them. If you're a California resident, you can join that push. (You may want to add that the state's requirement that a health insurer spend 70% of its income on actual health care is way, way too low.)

penny rants for Sunday, February 21, 2010.

For some reason, National Journal talks with Charlie Cook about "how the Democrats can improve their image with voters, particularly those who identify with the Tea Party movement" -- as if Tea Partiers comprise a solid majority of voters, as if Democrats don't routinely lose elections because they betray their liberal supporters. I could go on: as if most people don't know that Mr. Bush handed Mr. Obama an Augean stable and not a whole lot of shovels. As if the Tea Party really is some organic movement that just happened to "break through," and not a movement funded and stoked by right-wing corporate forces. As if Americans only think "big government" or "big labor" when they think "big" (as Charlie Cook apparently does), and not "big corporations." Americans mistrust "big," all right -- that's what makes us so awesome. But at least "big" government belongs to us. Big corporations would like to enslave us. Tea Partiers don't get that, for some mysterious reason, and neither does Charlie Cook, for that same mysterious reason.

Meanwhile, I continue to find Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) disagreeable even when he's trying to be agreeable. Mr. Bayh would support a Senate rule change requiring Senators to actually filibuster, instead of achieving the same end by merely signaling their intention to filibuster, but so does everyone else. But requiring only 55 votes to end a filibuster instead of 60? Surely he remembers that only 3 1/2 years ago the Republicans had 55 Senators. Surely he also remembers that the Democrats filibustered a lot from 2004-2006 -- nowhere near as much as Republicans do now, or even as much as Republicans did between 2006 and 2008, but enough to temper some really bad stuff during that time. I think that if we make Senators stand up and fulminate for days on end about why they don't want (for example) their constituents to get better health care, we'll do enough to put the shame back in politics that we could raise the level back up to 67 -- the Democrats reduced the level to 60 once they got back up to 61 in 1975, which doesn't recommend them. No matter what, of course, our job is still the same: reveal our will to our Senators, and encourage others to do the same. If we do that, we ought to do fine.

TSA racism and gas drilling pollution, plus the latest Tom Tomorrow comic which shines like a light from heaven.

Lately, the Transportation Safety Authority (or TSA) has been subjecting all airplane passengers born in 14 countries (listed at the end of this Wall Street Journal article) to rather more intense screenings than the rest of us. Notice anything those 14 countries have in common? I'll bet you did. A lot of folks think that's rather bold of the TSA, as if "daring" to be racist is bold. But a better idea would be to screen people on the basis of their actual behavior. If we'd screened the Christmas Day bomber on the basis of his ethnic background, we still wouldn't have caught him, because we'd still be busy grilling bajillions of passengers solely on the basis of their ethnic background. But if we'd "connected the dots" on all the intelligence we already had on him, as Mr. Obama himself admitted, we'd have caught him before he set his pants on fire. How about that: fighting racism isn't just the right thing to do, it's also effective policy. I shouldn't even have to argue like that, should I? The ACLU helps you protest the TSA's racial profiling.

Pennsylvania residents, take note: Cabot Oil & Gas got hit with a penalty for methane contamination in well waters in northeastern PA, where it was, you know, drilling for gas. Dig the part where the company tells the resident near the gas well that they shouldn't have a problem with the smell as long as they crack a window when they run the tap. Here I was, thinking this was the 21st century or something. (On a more serious note, you won't dig the part where a gas leak causes an explosion that kills three people.) Cabot will likely drill more than 60 gas wells in same area this year, so PennPIRG helps you tell CEO Dan Dinges that he must comply with state environmental laws that would prevent him from polluting our water. We shouldn't have to tell CEOs to follow the law, right? So why are we doing it now? One, because we live in a sick, immoral, and decadent culture where the rich and corporate apparently think laws are suggestions. Two, we want to put these folks on notice that we're watching them. Somebody's got to, after all.

Finally, Tom Tomorrow has drawn the greatest comic ever. Well, certainly the greatest comic since the one two weeks ago that cast Mr. Bush as a secret left-winger and Mr. Obama as a secret right-winger. Or the one in 2004 depicting Mr. Bush fighting aliens during his National Guard leaves. Or the one from 2002 -- ah, I could go on. Seriously, I'll be having nightmares about the ice cream man until the day I die.

analyze this!

The FDIC, which insures bank deposits (including yours!), wants banks that hand out big bonuses for risky behavior to pay higher insurance premiums, and Americans for Fairness in Lending helps you leave a public comment supporting this endeavor. The commenting period ends today, but I don't think you'll be at a loss for things to say. And don't be discouraged by folks telling you that government would be meddling in pay packages. I wouldn't call it "meddling" until approximately that point that bankers who actually deserve good pay wind up having to sell their bodily fluids for crack. And no, the outlandish bonuses aren't necessary to retain top talent -- top talent always moves on, that's the way top talent is, and the only way to "retain" it is to train new top talent. I would go so far as to say that outlandish bonuses encourage outlandish behavior, like the shell-game turn-debt-into-wealth schemes that caused the ongoing economic Armageddon. And since the outlandish behavior of financial titans affects us all -- we did just hand them $700 billion in taxpayer largesse so they could get the economy moving again, and they failed at that, too -- we need to rein it in. Period. "Nanny state" my ass.

Meanwhile, an upcoming Nation report tells us that "at least 75" registered lobbyists, PR reps, and corporate hacks have appeared on the major cable news channels since 2007 as "contributors" or "anaylsts" or "guests." I thought that number seemed low, actually, until I read the part where some of them appeared "hundreds" of times. During the AIG collapse, for example, AIG lobbyists and PR hacks appeared on cable news networks as "analysts" -- and, quelle surprise, the cable news networks did not disclose their ties to AIG. I don't even have to go into Betsy McCaughey's decades-old conflicts of interest as a health care "analyst," do I? Or the Pentagon's "force message multiplication" program concerning the Iraq war, which also included egregious examples of "analysts" having defense contractor ties? FAIR provides a petition calling for cable news networks to stop using public relations hacks as "analysts." I guess the cable news networks will complain that they just won't be able to fill 24 hours a day without all their beloved hacks. We can only hope!

Finally, we may have health care reform at the federal level, or we may not, and it may stink to high heaven, or it may not -- but Progressive States informs us that, no matter what the case, health care reform at the state level is alive and well. Good reform ideas get into bills, and laws, in dozens of states -- I had no idea, for example, that insurers can't turn away applicants in five states (including America's Greatest State, New Jersey), or that Colorado doesn't let insurers skew community ratings (and thus rates) by basing them on health status. I also (to my shame) had no idea that Pennsylvania's single-payer bill, SB 400, actually enjoys the support of the Republican leaders in both chambers of the state legislature. I'd figured it'd have a much harder climb than that. And it may yet! But I find reason for optimism in these dark times.

penny rants for Tuesday, February 16, 2010.

Lee Siegel suggests that we treat recalcitrant Republicans like tantrum-throwing children. To which I say: hallelujah! I've been calling Republicans whining brats and diaper-wearers for years; it's nice to see that meme finally crawling a bit closer to the mainstream. Of course, Mr. Siegel also suggests that Mr. Obama is a lousy, enabling parent, but we knew that already, and even the Star Trek episode "The Savage Curtain" (you remember, Lincoln flying around in space?) teaches us that evil always retreats before good if good is strong. That leads me to conclude that Democrats have no interest in being good or strong -- all that's left is to hope that the people, united, can browbeat them into being better stewards of government. (Sadly, most of the article's commenters throw tantrums, too. Did they read the same article I did? The worst I can say about it is that paragraph two is far too terse for its own good.)

Speaking of tantrums, Sen. Evan "the lesser" Bayh (D-IN) will retire at the end of his term in 2010, and he made this announcement a mere four days before the primary filing deadline -- with $13 million in the bank, no less -- so he must be really, really mad about how badly Congress runs these days. Of course I think the inveterate Estate Tax-cutter and "free"-trader and Iraq chickenhawk is part of the problem -- Evan Bayh is just another Democrat who wants bipartisanship above all, by which he means that he wants Democrats and Republicans to come together to give Republicans everything they want. And no, I'm not convinced that a Democrat needs to be a right-winger to win in Indiana. Byron Dorgan (whose retirement is a far sadder occasion) won fairly consistently in the much redder state of North Dakota by fighting media consolidation, fighting "free" trade, and fighting corporate abuses, all battles that actually unite the ideological spectrum, rather than shove right-wing ideas down the citizenry's collective throat, as Mr. Bayh would do. Here's hoping Mr. Bayh's ideological brethren all take his cue -- though I won't hold my breath.

somebody make this madness stop!

Sen. Murkowski (R-AK) has introduced S.J. Res. 26, a "resolution of disapproval" which would, incredibly, not only prevent the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases but would also prevent the EPA from setting auto emissions standards (does anyone think auto emissions are a good thing?) Thousands of folks with respiratory and cardiovascular diseases would now die, but at least the oil and coal industries would continue to deliver profits to their CEOs' wallets. A government's gotta have priorities, after all. And the resolution wouldn't be in force for a year (unlike Mrs. Murkowski's previous amendment), but would be in force forever. Funny how when Republicans don't get what they want, they immediately start demanding more. Maybe Democrats should try that sometime, if they care. The Union of Concerned Scientists helps you call your Reps and Senators. You don't have to follow the full script, obviously -- I left out the part about "a comprehensive climate change and energy bill," for example, since the ones out there stink.

Meanwhile, Monsanto continues its effort to push genetically modified alfalfa. The Bush USDA actually approved Monsanto's crop without a mandatory environmental review, but consumer group lawsuits put a stop to that, as well they should have. However, the Obama USDA has since conducted an environmental review and deemed Monsanto's alfalfa safe, even though said review also states that the alfalfa will almost certainly "contaminate" other seeds, including organic ones. Furthermore, the review suggested that contamination of organic seeds doesn't matter to consumers. I don't know what they're smoking over at the USDA, but last I looked, organic consumers like me were paying significantly more money for the privilege of avoiding Frankencrap in our food, and organic farmers were struggling mightily to keep Frankencrap out of the food they grow. By law, the USDA must take public comments about this proposal, so CREDO helps you leave a comment about this Monsanto madness.

Finally, if you're in the Philadelphia area today and don't work the evening shift, the Media Mobilizing Project will hold a consumer education event at Temple University called "The Bills Are Too High." The main topic will be the rising cost of utility bills, but the event includes internet bills as utility bills, which seems fair to me. The event will take place from 6 to 8 pm at the Tuttleman Learning Center, room 105, at the intersection of 13th and Montgomery; speakers will include members of the Media Mobilizing Project, the Philadelphia Student Union, and the Philadelphia Digital Justice Coalition, as well as Afro-Netizen founder Chris Rabb. For more information, contact Bryan Mercer at 215.436.9844.

penny rants for Sunday, February 14, 2010.

Jacob Weisberg suggests we should put most of the blame for our current political paralysis on "the childishness, ignorance, and growing incoherence of the public at large." What a profoundly undemocratic thing to say, no matter how one feels about particular voting blocs at a particular time. He supports his argument by citing polls that purportedly show Americans wanting different things simultaneously when they actually show Americans wanting different things at different times -- and the polls show Americans responding differently to differently-worded questions. Worse, Mr. Weisberg suggests that only fools think "government can tackle the big problems and get out of the way at the same time." Well, golly, if government can screw up Katrina and wiretap everybody's phones at the same time, why can't the opposite be true? Whenever I look at the numbers, I see fairly easy solutions -- raise taxes on the rich, cut defense pork, cut corporate welfare -- if only our representatives had the will. Yes, I'm as familiar with the obstacles (corrupt politicians, corporate contributions, stupid media) as you are, and yes, I get as tired warring against them as you do. But if Mr. Weisberg were right, then we'd be just as well off being a dictatorship, and I will not have that. Not in my America.

Meanwhile, the Prometheus Radio Project points me to this celebration of six local radio stations -- two from Kentucky and one each from Iowa, Indiana, Georgia, and California. The comments section adds five more as of this writing. (Valpo Radio's homepage is actually here.) The selection looks predominantly rural, of course, but then again America is predominantly rural and looks ain't everything anyway -- for example, Mountain Community Radio in Whitesville, Kentucky was playing Soul II Soul's other hit at 2 pm on Friday. About fifteen minutes earlier I tuned into HAY-98 in Whitley City, Kentucky, and promptly learned that children at a local school were about to arrive home safely after a bomb threat. I bet the good folks of Whitley City didn't get that news from their nearest Clear Channel affiliate.

double-impact Friday!

As you may know, Pennsylvania doesn't charge an impact tax on gas companies that drill into the ground, though most other states do. Gov. Rendell supports an impact tax, but Pennsylvania's regressive legislature doesn't, even during a budget apocalypse like the one we had six months ago. Remember Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter putting a gun to the entire city's head and threatening to blow its brains out so the state would pass a budget? What exciting times those were! As oil and gas companies move to drill in the Marcellus Shale, the idea of an impact tax will have more, er, impact. Corporate apologists, who call themselves "conservatives" these days though they're not, will complain that now is not the time to increase taxes on energy producers, as if they ever think there's a "time" for a tax on anyone, as if taxes drain energy producers of their desire to make money like a Kryptonite necklace around Superman's neck. Penn Environment helps you support an impact tax on natural gas drillers.

Meanwhile, the TRADE Act (H.R. 3012/S. 2821) now has majority support among House Democrats -- 137 Reps now co-sponsor the bill, ranging ideologically (among Democrats) from Dennis Kucinich to Mike Ross, and Republicans Walter Jones (SC) and Chris Smith (NJ) also co-sponsor the bill. The TRADE Act would, as you may recall, force future international trade pacts to honor exactly those U.S. labor/environmental/human rights laws that so many "free" trade pacts exist to avoid, plus it would also force other signatories to adopt similar protections. Would that constitute the United States forcing its will on other countries, you might ask? No, it would not: the other signatories are always free to, well, not sign. It's not like invading Iraq. Some 22 Blue Dogs now co-sponsor the TRADE Act, probably so we'll stop signing trade agreements entirely. If that's what it takes for us to start making our own stuff again, that's fine by me. So Public Citizen helps you support the TRADE Act.

liars, thieves, and spies.

Another year, another drive by our elite dunderheads to destroy Social Security, and this time the excuse is, guess what, the lousy economy. USA Today "found" Social Security on "the brink" because (as it turns out) the trust fund has only $2.5 trillion and the program will only be solvent until 2037. That leaves us only 27 years to raise the cap on income taxes -- currently no income over $90,000 gets any Social Security tax levied on it, though $90,000 hasn't been "rich" for many decades now. Strangely, USA Today didn't report on the possibility that the income tax cap could be raised, even though it was a prominent Obama campaign pledge, nor did they report on Mr. Orszag's modest payroll tax increase proposal, even though Mr. Orszag now heads Mr. Obama's Office of Management and Budget. Apparently, when a Democrat's in office, USA Today thinks fiscal reactionaries like Paul Ryan are still the absolute authorities. You can contact USA Today's Standards Editor, Brent Jones, at 1.800.872.7073, or at accuracy at usatoday dot com.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports that the National Security Agency will help Google analyze the corporate espionage attack originating in China two months ago. Government looking at a worldwide search engine? The article seems rather sanguine about it -- it doesn't admit real skepticism until paragraph 17 -- but perhaps you and I are on yellow alert. Would a government use an agreement with a private corporation as an excuse to intercept private transmissions and spy on Americans? Of course they would -- doesn't matter if the President has a D or an R after his or her name. The NSA did violate the Constitution with its warrantless wiretapping program for many years, after all, without anyone knowing about it until 2006. And you don't have to take Google at its word that it'll protect the privacy of its users, either -- even with the best intentions, they can be strong-armed by the government. We'd be better off letting the most powerful search engine on Earth fixing its own problems, and also (not incidentally) we'd be better off not backing up all our files online. The ACLU helps you tell Google to stay away from the NSA.

a lesson about backbone.

Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) died yesterday, possibly of complications from gall bladder surgery. Mr. Murtha was a lifelong conservative-to-moderate back-bencher as well as a legendary procurer of pork for his district, but I prefer to remember him as the first Democrat who ever stood up to George W. Bush. Though he was an early Iraq war hawk, he became concerned enough about the war's toll on the armed services that he called for an immediate pullout of American troops from Iraq in late 2005, at which point Mr. Cheney suggested Mr. Murtha had lost his "backbone." Mr. Murtha, a Vietnam vet, promptly responded that Mr. Cheney had received five deferments to stay out of Vietnam, and as such really had no standing to challenge his "backbone" -- and, perhaps not coincidentally, the tone of both Messrs. Bush and Cheney changed dramatically the following week.

Sadly, not even five years later, Democrats seem to have forgotten the lesson Mr. Murtha taught: that bullies are weak, and need to be slapped down. Shame on them.

warning: contains oblique "Dead Like Me" reference.

The EPA has proposed a new rule to strengthen the nation's sulfur dioxide (SO2) air quality standard, and Public Citizen helps you leave a public comment about it. Coal and oil plants produce large amounts of SO2, and SO2 can combine with nitrogen dioxide (among other things) to produce acid rain. SO2 emissions have come down a long way since 1971, but children, elderly folk, and folks with asthma still have problems with SO2, and the technology to make the levels come down further already exists. Let me guess what our opponents will say: regulating SO2 emissions further will make us depend on foreign energy more (though the sun and wind are hardly "foreign"); volcanoes make sulfur dioxide, too, so sulfur dioxide is natural and thus "harmless"; winemakers and laboratories use SO2, and so they'll automatically get caught up in the net even though they don't use anywhere near as much sulfur as a coal or oil plant does. As you might guess, I'd call all of these excuses. But, as we hopefully know by now, the enemies of progress will flog any argument to death -- and the "liberal" media will treat any pro-corporate flatulence as very serious objections of very serious people.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania state legislators seem unusually anxious to open up state forests to gas drilling -- they've already opened some 700,000 acres, or about one in three acres of state forest, up to natural gas producers. Gas drilling tends to destroy habitats for native species and (as we've discussed here a few times) pollute the water table, even in areas where the corporations don't actually have permission to drill, since they often drill their wells diagonally, or even horizontally. Clever, eh? Supporters of leasing public lands to gas drillers may cite the ongoing state budget crisis and thus the need to raise revenue as an excuse. But I could have told them how to balance the budget without cutting up state forests. Oh, wait, I did. And you probably did, too. Penn Environment provides the contact tool.

Finally, this editorial asking why liberals are so "condescending" to conservatives demonstrates that the Soup of the Day at the Washington Post is still Cream of Caca. I won't list all of my objections to this piece, since they number approximately one per point made by the author, but I will share three of them. One, the author doesn't bother defining "conservatism," so that he's given liberals nothing to "listen to" by article's end. Two, the author doesn't bother refuting any instances of liberal "condescension" -- we're left to believe his multitudinous exhibits are-just-wrong-because-they-exist, which is itself rather condescending to his audience. Three, and most appalling, the author either doesn't know or simply ignores what liberals have been putting up with from "conservatives" for the last few years, and not just from "gadflies" like Glenn Beck. After all the times I've heard why do you hate America? and you're with the terrorists! and you want America to fail! and you're a traitor! I think it's a miracle I'm not more condescending, frankly. This article's author is another right-wing whiner who needs to start with the man in the mirror.

readings for Saturday, February 6, 2010.

The incorrigible Mr. Cockburn explains at length why the American left is impotent, taking us through 80 years of triumphs and tragedies (after only promising us 50!). One theme: how labor unions have stood in the way of progress to the degree they've been co-opted by the powerful -- and (perhaps not coincidentally) how weak labor unions are today. Mr. Cockburn also tells us that the mid-20th century Communist witch-hunts have deprived the left of its Leninist/Trotskyist intellectual heft. Perhaps because I'm not particularly Leninist/Trotskyist myself, I'd locate the resulting "infections" in places other than "9/11 conspiracism" or "junk science climate catastrophism" -- like, in an America that confuses corporate freedom with individual freedom.

Meanwhile, Progressive States sees, at least in the short term, a rosier picture, at least as far as beating back right-wing anti-tax initiatives at the state level. The Oregon tax-hikes-on-the-rich-and-corporate provide the immediate news hook, but we also learn that a) right-wing tax cuts have been failing at the state level for many years and b) many studies tell us that tax increases don't undermine the economy. I have one question: if voters reject cutting taxes in times of economic distress, why do they elect anti-tax politicians? I mean, besides that a vote for a politician is a fairly imprecise tool? I guess it's because the education effort has a long way to go. I guess it's also because too few politicians think that effort is as sexy as I think it is.

And speaking of education, former rock star Ted Nugent took a foreign paper on a journey to the center of his mind -- celebrity vegetarianism prompts him to hunt more animals, the penalty for stepping on his lawn is death, Barack Obama should be in jail, like that. As it happens, I also oppose welfare and gun control, and I also love my country because "we the people make a determination," but I don't find his supposedly no-holds-barred tone particularly refreshing -- I'd prefer a hifalutin college professor who's actually right most of the time to a foul-mouthed salt-of-the-earth who persistently blames the wrong people for "gluttony and slovenliness and laziness and a lifestyle of bloodsucking." If you already agree with Ted Nugent on everything, I suppose you might disagree. But anyone can preach to the converted; persuasion demands more of you.

UPDATE. Made minor stylistic edit in paragraph one, so that I don't look like a complete dunderhead. "And how, perhaps not coincidentally, how weak" indeed. Both redundant and repetitive, I'd say.

"bailouts" as the new "death panels"! What exciting times!

The ACLU provides a contact tool promoting PATRIOT Act reform. Remember that January 18 Washington Post report finding that the FBI had illegally collected over 2,000 U.S. phone records over four years in large part by invoking (all together now) terrorism emergencies that did not exist? That ought to make folks more wary of giving the federal government all that extra power. And no, the fact that a Democrat is President doesn't mean we should trust the federal government more -- in fact, Mr. Obama has generally shown little appetite for abrogating the massive powers Congress ceded to Mr. Bush. It sure seems like he didn't even try that hard to close Guantanamo, doesn't it? So, yes, this is one of those times when you need to treat your government as if it were a maniac in need of restraints.

Meanwhile, Frank Luntz is back, advising Republicans on how to kill financial reform legislation: basically, call it a bailout, because bailout is a bad word, never mind that the bill that passed the House in December contains no $700 billion welfare handouts to financial corporations. I'd like to think Mr. Luntz's latest effort will fail, that folks will have trouble understanding how a regulatory crackdown on the financial sector could possibly constitute a bailout for said sector, but Mr. Luntz has gotten away with worse (the "death tax"!), and, sadly, it may not even come to that: Senator Dodd doesn't seem to think he can get meaningful reform done anyway, which I understand to mean that he's looking past the end of his Senate term and to his next job lobbying for the banks. That means you and you and you and you and I need to speak up. CREDO provides one petition, and USPIRG provides another.

Finally, the good citizens of Pennsylvania suffer yet another offense to their intelligence, as state Sen. John Eichelberger has introduced SB 707, which would amend the state constitution so that "only the union of one man and one woman shall be valid and recognized as a marriage in this Commonwealth." You may remember Mr. Eichelberger as the fellow who claimed a fairly unprecedented amount of power over human evolution not too long ago by saying of gays, "we're allowing them to exist." Sigh. Now right-wingers rush to amend state constitutions these days because they worry that "activist judges" will overturn legislative acts banning gays from marrying. Why don't they worry about activist judges, oh, I don't know, calling corporations people? It must not hit home for them, though one day it will, and they'll probably all be in debtor's prisons by then. SB 707 has a total of 16 sponsors, out of a mere 50 state Senators in Pennsylvania, so we'll need to apply some people power to this monstrosity. Keystone Progress helps you do that.

defense, nuclear regulation, and crime, plus bonus "Fightin' Side of Me" reference.

Perhaps don't-ask-don't-tell repeal will proceed more quickly than I thought: both Defense Secretary Gates and Joint Chiefs Chair Mullen testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee this week that gays should serve openly in the military. Yet they also said they want to "study" the policy change for another year, during which time the military will still hemorrhage servicefolk discharged for no reason other than their sexual orientation. So SLDN provides a contact tool with which you may tell your Senators that the time to repeal don't-ask-don't-tell is now. I feel compelled to note that, now that even right-wingers like Charles Krauthammer (Charles Krauthammer!) support repeal, right-wing arguments against repeal have become more desperate. Sen. McCain, having said in the past that he wouldn't support repeal until military leaders supported repeal in the manner Mr. Mullen has just done, now says we're just fighting too many wars to support repeal right now. And Duncan Hunter worries we'll be fighting alongside "transgenders" and hermaphrodites. Merle Haggard once wondered if we'd remain free for long with so many draft dodgers in our midst. I wonder the same when so many of our soldiers become weak old men.

Public Citizen encourages you to oppose the nomination of William Magwood to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. He'd be one of five commissioners, if confirmed, but Mr. Magwood has a long and not exactly storied career cheerleading for the nuclear industry. Now you may be inclined to say, shouldn't a commission charged with regulating the nuclear industry have someone from the industry on it? I'd answer no -- NRC commissioners should understand the nuclear industry, but that obligation doesn't automatically extend to including industry enablers among its members. Furthermore, the NRC's mission doesn't include promoting nuclear power, but regulating said power so that it doesn't hurt citizens or the environment we all share. You may forgive me if I presume that the nuclear industry, like so many contemporary industries, doesn't particularly care about much other than the bottom line these days -- sure, some folks within the industry care, but they don't get to make very many decisions. The Senate Environment Committee will hold hearings on Mr. Magwood's nomination on or around February 9, so time's a-wasting.

Meanwhile, the Senate Judiciary Committee has begun debating S. 1789, the Fair Sentencing Act of 2009. Currently, U.S. drug law requires a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years for possession of 5 kg of powder cocaine or 50 grams of crack cocaine, and five years for possession of 500 grams of powder cocaine or 5 grams of crack cocaine. But S. 1789 would require a mandatory minimum of 10 years for 5 kg of both powder and crack cocaine, and five years for 500 grams of both powder and crack. S. 1789 would also intensify penalties for the real villains of the drug trade, the traffickers. (I tend to think of drug users as folks who need our help more than the back of our hand. Call me a liberal for thinking that if you like. But drug traffickers are just criminals.) S. 1789 eradicates the crack/powder disparity because crack cocaine, frankly, is not the boogeyman politicians made it out to be during the 1980s -- more often than not, in fact, it's an excuse to put more black folks in jail for drug use than white folks. That makes some white folks happy, I know, but let's not be their enablers. You can call your Senators using the tools in the upper left-hand corner, or you can contact Judiciary Committee members (by clicking on their names).

public campaign financing, preventing hospital infections, extending unemployment benefits, and standing in awe of corporate flatulence.

Common Cause helps you urge your Senators to support the Fair Elections Now Act (H.R. 1826/S. 752). The Fair Elections Now Act, which has been stuck in committee for almost a year, would establish a public campaign fund for House and Senate elections; candidates would qualify for the public campaign fund by raising a certain number of small donations (between $5 and $100), thus proving their viability as candidates. Candidates could use their own money, of course, but would risk bad publicity for trying to spend their way into office -- and candidates could not accept public funds and then change their mind midway through the campaign. Participating candidates could still receive small donations outside of the public fund up to $100 (that's in the aggregate, for the election cycle); I'd still like to see the bill address bundling more directly, but I can certainly live with the limit. As you know, we're going to be swamped with corporate campaign contributions more than ever before, due to the Supreme Court's judicial activism in Citizens United v. FEC. So the Fair Elections Now Act is starting to look like a need.

Meanwhile, around 100,000 Americans die from preventable hospital infections every year in the United States -- I was in the hospital not too long ago myself, and of course I thought about that stat then. 27 states have instituted mandatory reporting of all hospital infections; in one of them (my home state of Pennsylvania), the infection rate has dropped by 8% over the last two years. It's almost as if there's something about putting bad information out there that makes folks not want to have to put bad information out there. Consumers Union helps you tell Congress and the President to mandate nationwide hospital infection reporting. That's the sort of step-by-step health care reform process Mitch McConnell could approve of, right? I guess we'll see. I'm not going to hold my breath, though.

NETWORK reminds us that Emergency Unemployment Compensation (or EUC) will expire on February 28 unless Congress extends it. EUC includes full federal funding of Extended Benefits, $25 per week in Federal Additional Compensation, and the 65% 15-month COBRA subsidy through the end of 2010. 32 Democratic Senators have signed a letter by my homey, Bob Casey the Younger, calling upon the Democratic Senate leadership to extend said benefits. I wonder why they felt the need to speak up in such a manner. It couldn't be because Sens. Reid and Baucus (the addressees) are a bit distracted these days? Tell them their distraction is immaterial.

Finally, get a load of this pile of dung: a Christmas day Straight Dope column addresses, among other things, fish farming and fish depletion, and some corporate lackey takes issue with it in a lengthy letter that we know is very important and very significant and very serious because it's very long. (Thankfully, Cecil Adams or-whomever picks the argument apart.) I've received letters like this from corporate lackeys before -- they constantly move the goalposts of their arguments and snow you with half-contextualized data. But there's something different about this particular corporate sputum: it's mean and nasty. I've seen letters confident to the point of smug in their restraint, but I haven't seen utterances like "a minimal amount of research...would have made that readily apparent," "a complete ignorance and lack of perspective often associated with unqualified armchair nutritionists," or "(y)our poor research and insistence on hyperbole rather than perspective does a terrible disservice to your readers" -- let alone the veiled threat of a lawsuit in the last sentence. It's almost like corporations are lashing out because they feel deprived of the love they think they deserve. Of course we know that's not possible, because they're not people, and thus have no feelings. Still, if we're seeing this kind of behavior now, I shudder to think what we'll see when the torches and pitchforks really show up.

UPDATE. Common Cause now provides a petition supporting the Fair Elections Now Act.

crushing debt, crushing corruption, and crushing stupidity.

Reps. Waters (D-CA) and Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) are circulating a letter urging Treasury Secretary Geithner to help reduce Haiti's debt burden; RESULTS helps you urge your Congressfolk to sign said letter. The letter calls for (among other things) the cancellation of Haiti's debt to organizations like the International Monetary Fund; I'm not sure exactly what authority Mr. Geithner would have over the IMF, other than an "advisory" one. But one of the biggest reasons Haiti is in a hole is because of its debt. I think we all know first-hand how hard it is to do anything constructive when you've got debt hanging over your head. And our debt ain't like Haiti's. And I endorse the whole idea of grants-not-loans. So I'll tell my Congressman to sign the letter, even if Mr. Geithner looks at it and says, "well, what do you think I can do about it?" Or even if he doesn't look at it.

During his State of the Union address last week, Mr. Obama urged anyone with "a better approach (to health care) that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors, and stop insurance company abuses" to "let (him) know about it." The People's Email Network takes that as a cue to start pushing single-payer health care again, and so do I. Not that once-upon-a-time single-payer supporter Mr. Obama needs to be made aware of its existence -- but he may need to be made aware that it's still popular among the voters, that the insurance companies don't get more say than the voters, and that single-payer is five-for-five on his conditions for a "better approach." While we're at it, we ought to contact Speaker Pelosi's office (either here or at 202.225.0100) and request that H.R. 676 (the House single-payer bill) be submitted to the Congressional Budget Office for a score. She'll never see it coming.

Meanwhile, CREDO informs me that Sen. Murkowski withdrew her amendment that would have prevented the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases for a year -- but she's managed to get Democratic Senators Landrieu (LA), Lincoln (AK) and Nelson (NE) to sign on to a "resolution of disapproval" that would achieve the same goal as her amendment. I know that's only three Senators, but I wouldn't get complacent about this -- her junior partner in the Senate, Democrat Mark Begich, could sign on as well, and historically Hawaii's two Democratic Senators have supported Alaska Senators' efforts to give out corporate welfare goodies to dirty energy. Well, if we can pressure them once, we can pressure them again. (Also, Public Citizen, using the aforementioned effort to block EPA regulations as its news hook, reminds us of its contact tool supporting a Constitutional Amendment preventing corporations from having First Amendment rights. Corporations are already lobbying Congressfolk against any effort to make the planet less dirty; now they have even more power to do so.)

Finally, you may have heard that historian and activist Howard Zinn died last week. Well, according to FAIR, the allegedly too-liberal National Public Radio took an unusual tack on his death: they invited right-wing fool David Horowitz to trash Mr. Zinn's intellectual legacy, which, according to Mr. Horowitz, was not "worthy of any kind of respect." The punchline: according to Mr. Horowitz himself, NPR actually edited out his unsupported-by-argument comment that ex-WWII fighter pilot Zinn was also a "Stalinist and a lifelong supporter of America’s enemies up to and including the Islamic terrorists." NPR undoubtedly pats itself on the back for leaving that comment on the floor, but shouldn't, since they didn't bring anyone on to trash William F. Buckley, Jr. when he died, though the man was once a white supremacist, which is far worse than an anti-corporate activist. Maybe NPR couldn't find someone on the left as crazy as David Horowitz when Mr. Buckley died. I guess I can't blame them for that. Anyway, you can contact NPR's ombudsman here or call 202.513.3245. (Also, FAIR wants to know about your comment to NPR here.)