Paris Hilton and the Minimum Wage

Haven't posted in a while. Been busy, don't ask.

It was the Repugnican tactic of adding a tax break for Paris Hilton and her ilk to a bill to raise the minimum wage that shocked me back to the keyboard. If ever there was a more dastardly amendment to a good bill, I'll write about it tomorrow but for now, I'll settle for this one. Briefly, Repugnicans added an amendment to the bill to raise the minimum wage that will give Paris Hilton and 8,199 (approx) of her rich buddies an average of about 1.4 million each out of Federal tax receipts. That works out to about $11.5 billion. In exchange, the 6.6 million people in this country working forty hour weeks for $10,700 per year, the minimum wage, get $1,200 per year for a total of $7.9 billion. That's the rich guys by $3.6 billion.

They've avoided voting against giving themselves a raise for the past nine years for about $36,000 per year in raises. And they can't vote to give the working poor a raise without shifting to you and me the tax burden (what a burden!) of the rich?

Amazing how Republicans keep convincing perfectly sane Americans to vote against their own self-interest.

July 4th, 2006

I didn't fly a flag today. Me, a military veteran, made the decision based on the fact that I'd have to fly it upside down. They're fighting for the symbol while trampling all over what it symbolizes and that distresses me. It should distress us all.

While North Korea launched four SCUD missile variants into the Sea of Japan, the MSM was babbling about someone eating 53 and a half hot dogs. I wouldn't care to be that guy's toilet in the morning and I don't care to hear about him now. Iraq, rightly so, wants some of our troops tried for war crimes. Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.... The MSM is still publishing Wingnut rants to defy the First Amendment to the Constitution vis-a-vis freedom of the press. We're still holding people in Guantanamo without access to a lawyer, without the right to confront their accusers and without even being charged with a crime. All that said, here's my Liberal scream for the day:

I could care less about the flag of the United States of America.

Some years ago I was sworn in as an Air Force officer. I swore to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. There wasn't and isn't in any oath of office sworn in the United States a reference to the flag. The Flag is a dish rag and in most cases not a particularly absorbent one. Without the Constitution, it's a meaningless piece of brightly colored cloth, something to bleed its colors on your laundry. There is no reason to defend the Flag, it guarantees no rights, it doesn't establish a system of checks and balances on power, it does nothing. The Constitution establishes our government, it outlines the basic freedoms we have, the responsibilities and limits of the three branches of Government, it is the basis for the great American experiment. The flag just kind of hangs there and flaps.

Given a choice what to defend from desecration, I'd pick the Constitution any day.

Happy Fourth, everyone.

Osama Unit Shut Down

Remember the guy who killed nearly 3,000 Americans? The one Bush said we'd get dead or alive? Bush shut down the CIA unit charged with getting him some time last year and didn't bother to tell you about it.

I heard a long story on NPR about it this morning but they never mentioned the one reason Bin Laden hasn't been captured: It isn't in the interests of the Bush Administration. Sure, if they really know where he is, he'll be trotted out some time in mid-to late October to try to win some points for the bad guys but as long as he's out there, the Bushies have a poster child for their interminable War on Tactic. Were Bin Laden captured, there could be an outcry for us to declare victory in the War on Terror (TM) and strip the Shrub of his greenery, sorry, "wartime President" status. He might then even have to start obeying laws and respecting minor things such as the Constitution and treaty.

Tomorrow is Independence Day. I'm tempted to fly my flag upside down, showing the distress of a lover of our country. I respect the flag, as does every military man. I revere the Constitution. Without the Constitution, the flag is a dishcloth, a bad rug, lining for a pet bed, it's a meaningless piece of cloth. Without statesmen to support the Constitution, it becomes a useless piece of paper, to quote a certain very unstatesmanlike political leader (it's parchment, Mr. Bush, not paper). Without an informed citizenry to elect statesmen rather than cheap politicians (current President, Congress, Supreme Court and most of state and local government of both parties being members of the latter), all we get is cheap political posturing about non-issues such as gay marriage, flag burning, vague threats against the First Amendment and other meaningless drivel designed to inflame the base rather than solve problems. Without an effective press, citizens can't be informed, instead will know everything there is to know about insignificant entertainment and little about our Government.

It's instructive to realize that Civics is not a required subject in most school districts.

So my Fourth of July wish for the United States is for a press that realizes its job is to inform, not to pander to the Administration or to hide facts from us because they may be inconvenient to some. I hope the Press wakes up and realizes its job is objectivity, not balance, and leaves balance to slanted infotainment broadcasters such as Fox News. I pray for more articles such as the New York Times's revelation of the Government's unwarranted "follow the money" spying and I pray they publish them sooner rather than later. I pray for what Jefferson prayed for, the press. And I pray for more stories about the Osama unit's closing, just a bit more punctually, please.

McConnell and McCain, Two Fries Short of a Happy Meal

I was wondering what to write about, I mean, it's been a quiet day. I can't even attribute our sudden inch of rain, the first real precip since January in Denver, to global warming. Then I read of an interview with the two Big Mac's, McConnell and McCain, on the Supreme Court's ruling on Guantanamo.

Republicans are having a hard time with the ruling, I mean, it was such a slam dunk. These were bad people, running around Afghanistan wearing olive green clothing and cheap Casio watches, sold to the U. S. for a few dollars as terrorists or Taliban. They shouldn't have human rights now, should they? That "We Hold these Truths to be Self-Evident" thing, well, that belongs in the "quaint old parchment" bin with the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions, two documents pulled from the Republican dustbin and returned to the position of prominence they should hold in our land. They're having trouble with two parts of the ruling:

1. The United States is a country of law with a Constitution that is above all law and office holders. It's what separates us from Saudi Arabia and other pleasant, quaint monarchies and it applies to everyone. Also, treaties carry a weight higher than the Constitution itself and we are signatories to the Geneva Conventions. McConnell frets that enforcing article three of the Conventions could expose American servicemen to war crimes accusations. Well, based on some of the atrocities I've seen reported from Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo, they probably deserve it. They also can't hide behind the argument that they were under orders because first, none of the big fish are being implicated and second, "I'm following orders" doesn't absolve soldiers of liability for crimes. Following an illegal order is no defense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. I had to live with that. Today's soldiers do, too.

2. The ruling exposes the illegality of a number of Bush power grabs from Guantanamo to warrantless wiretapping. It also shows the Republican Congress to be complicit yes-men in allowing the extension of Executive power. Bush and Cheney have wanted from the start of their administration to grab power, to "restore the power of the Executive". In so doing, they've completely ignored laws, used 750 signing statements to say I don't have to follow the law and have avoided run-ins with their Republican majority by rubber stamping whatever Congress sends them.

In general, Republicans have pretty much indicated they don't support the Constitution. From First Amendment cases through Habeas Corpus to ignoring basic American values, they've pretty much indicated they'd prefer a Republican Taliban Monarchy to our messy, checks-and-balances-laden form of constitutional democracy. McCain, too, shows his true colors in this discussion. He's not a centrist, he's a true Conservative and as such, does not deserve to rule this great country.

Is Allard Confused?

Yes but in this case, the Torturer (one of less than ten Senators who believe the Constitution of the United States, the newly-reaffirmed Geneva Conventions and the values of our country allow torture as indicated by their votes on the McCain anti-torture bill) is more confused than normally indicated by his lock-step approach to the Shrub's anti-American agenda. He wants hearings on immigration held here in Colorado because of our proximity to the border.

Last I looked, we had about seven hundred miles of New Mexico between us and the border.

Allard's motives are simply political. Immigration is a red-meat issue to Conservative Republicans (read Christian Taliban, the populace of Colorado Springs). We're having an election for Governor this year and with the last polling, Democrat Bill Ritter was leading Republican Bob Beauprez by ten points in this so-called red state. They want to bring the National issue here to whip the base into a feeding frenzy and get out the vote against the Democratic usuprers (we took back both State houses last election and now seem in good position to take the Governor's mansion as well). Ken Salazar, one of the few Democratic bright spots in 2004's election, calls it a delaying tactic to keep from having to vote in the Congress. I call it a blessing in disguise.

I love reframing the Republicans' untenable positions. Here they want to keep a rational bill designed both to shore up our borders and to offer a way to citizenship for those already here at our invitation to pick our crops and clean our toilets from a vote in favor of a bill that will criminalize twelve million people. Which I also enjoy because it will alienate the Latino vote, one that was beginning to drift to the Right. Maybe unlike many of us Americans, the Latino vote will continue to vote their own self-interest, read Democratic.

How much longer before we can get rid of Allard the Torturer, too?