The hits just keep on comin' with these little "free trade" deals the Democrats want to make: the trade deal with Peru, due to be signed June 30, would allow Citibank to sue Peru if it decides to reverse its failed social security privatization program. You can see the sort of precedent that would set, right? If our government were so stupid as to try to privatize our Social Security, corporations could sue to keep privatization going no matter how many poor seniors wound up out in the street. Who are the owners of government again, according to George Allen? I know he didn't mean it, but he said it well: the real owners of the government are the people. Not the corporations. Never, ever the corporations. Hand out the necessary beatdown here.
And the hits just keep on comin' for the unholy alliance between the "values" voter and the "terrified" voter: the Navy fires a translator of Arabic just for being gay, and, sadly, Alberto Gonzales is unavailable to claim the translator was actually "incompetent," and then retract the claim. What was it Barry Goldwater said in 1993? That he cared more that our soldiers could shoot straight than that they were straight? The Military Readiness Enhancement Act would fix this; here's one contact tool and here's another. Gay soldiers serve openly in 20 of 25 NATO countries, yet we still coddle our religious bigots. For shame, America!
H.R. 2802, the Local Community Radio Act of 2007, would permit the creation of more low-power FM (or LPFM) radio stations; a companion bill in the Senate, co-sponsored by Senators McCain (he remembers!) and Cantwell, will follow shortly. The more stations not owned by megacorporations the better, I say -- the better for racial and sexual diversity, and the better for regional diversity as well. Of course, the National Association of Broadcasters opposes it, so citizens will have to jam their Representatives' lines to get this done. FreePress provides the email contact tool, and tools for calling your Reps are, as always, in the upper left-hand corner of this humble page. And hey, if you want to start your own low-power FM station, the Prometheus Project can help you.
In other news, Harold Saxon's party won an astounding 507 seats in yesterday's election in the U.K.. Saxon now has four times as many seats in Parliament as Labour and Tory combined; the Liberal Democrats got only 7 seats, and that'll teach them to abandon their call for a 50% tax bracket. To have singlehandedly broken the old two-party stranglehold in Britain, this Mr. Saxon must be a truly mesmerizing fellow. And you lucky citizens of Great Britain will get to see your new Golden Age unfold on BBC1 Saturday night at 7.15 pm! Be ready for the sound of drums!
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