As If There's Nothing Else Going On....

What the Republicans want to waste Congress's time on in the coming week:

- Flag burning. We killed that one by one vote. I want to know who the Democrats who are against free speech are so we can work to get them outed in primaries. One good thing did come out of the debate today: The Covenant Cops can no longer tell me how to display the American flag on my property.

- Estate Tax Reduction. They still want to shift Warren Buffett's tax burden (he's in favor of the estate tax, by the way) to you and me or worse, to future generations. Paris Hilton gets a break, a minimum wage worker's taxes increase. Repugnicanism at its best. We may have killed that one as well, so Laughing Boy Frist's millions will have to be taxed when he dies. I call that justice.

- First Amendment Restrictions. Come on, did anyone really believe the terrorists didn't know we were tracking their finances? The only reason to attack journalists for publishing the story about our international financial transactions being data mined is that it's another embarassment to the Shrubpublicans, another case of abuse of Executive authority and another reason to throw the bums out.

- Gay Marriage. Can someone tell me how gay marriage is supposed to damage my heterosexual relationships? Can someone tell me how a secular country, as ours in name is, is involved on "sacred" relationships? And can someone tell me how a union requiring a license from a State authority and registration with said authorities is not a civil union? This is a "wedgie" issue, one juvenile Republicans like to pull up peoples' cracks to win votes and laughs on the Washington playground.

- Pledge of Allegiance. They want to block any attempt to sue against the words "under God," inserted under McCarthyism as a raspberry aginst the Godless Communists and fought over ever since.

- Ten Commandments. They want to make it illegal to pay a lawyer to challenge church-state lawsuits.

Human Cloning, Fetus feels pain, protection of gun owners, yada, yada. Here's what they refused:

- Increasing the minimum wage for the first time in what, fifteen years? They kept it at $10,600 per year while giving themselves more than that in pay raises.

- Forcing the Government to negotiate drug prices for the Prescription Drug Ripoff, as the Veterans' Administration is required to do. It was prohibited under the law creating the Drug Ripoff.

I think we have a priority problem. More importantly I think we have a bunch of Republicans scared to death they will be unemployed and may actually have to hold a job where performance counts.