So we as a nation have had a chance to digest the State of the Union Address. And we’ve even had a chance to think about the various rebuttals.
It’s time to send some nice friendly mail to your Senators. Specifically, there are two things you need to impress upon them. The first has to do with their systematic destruction of the minimum wage hike bill that passed the House with flying colors. You may be aware that in the Senate, there has been an attempt to saddle it with a bunch of tax cuts. These cuts allegedly benefit “small businesses”, but I imagine that a close look would reveal a strange definition of “small businesses” is in play. It is worth noting that some news sources drop the word “small” altogether.
But what you may not know is that the Senate has also tried to use this bill to exempt agricultural workers from minimum wage laws! Talk about creating “jobs Americans don’t want”; Americans kind of like being able to — in the immortal words of Mr. Bush — “put food on their families.” And we will scratch our heads and wonder how the next food contamination scare happened. Funny thing about asking people who make under the minimum wage to use food sanitation guidelines.
But wait, there’s more!
This article only touches on a serious problem in the President’s Cabinet. We have an Attorney General for the United States of America who does not believe that we necessarily have the right of habeas corpus. None other than Arlen Spector called him on this, asking how the Constitution can say a right can’t be taken away unless we specifically have that right to begin with. The battle becomes bipartisan as Patrick Leahy joins the action. If you want to see the whole thing in context, these nice people have it.
You need to write both your Senators today. Tell them to pass a clean minimum wage hike, and stop screwing around. Or better yet, tell them that it is high time to demand the resignation of Alberto Gonzales for fundamentally failing to understand the Constitution he has sworn to uphold and betraying his duty as “the people’s lawyer.”
In closing: obligatory comments on health care; terrific site that addresses the practical considerations of travel in the modern world; speaking of travel, Bruce Schneier once more says the truth; yet another Federal voucher proposal, never mind what a bad idea it is; what R2D2 and Chewbacca were really thinking in Star Wars; been a long time since I said anything about Fannie Mae; a different spin on the ticking bomb scenario; a Government initiative that has the stated purpose of food safety but the actual purpose of driving small and sustainable faming operations out of business; and finally, I want a HoverJeep!
Follow up: It seems that someone managed to sneak in an amendment that would pre-empt state laws mandating a higher minimum wage. What on earth were they thinking??
5um3m453//, //4573r. i d0 //07 p055355 m4d l33t 5killz y37. I got no chainsaws.. no cross bows no habeus corpus,… i got nuthin Boo.
So now the american public is feedling that their fingers have been burned by meddling in the affairs of another nation (it costs lives – the lives of your children) and the Democrats are seizing this opportunity to claim that the mess was none of their doing and that they should be hired to do the fixing… my worry is that we have created this festering sore of a crime against the every day joe-Iraqi by distroying their country and now were getting set to walk away from the mess before it is fixed.
Part of fixing G.B.’s mess should be restoring a semblance of order in that country. I think tthe applicable metaphor is “having a tiger by the tail.” The measure of our moral maturity and credibility will be equal to the the effort and result of owning and fixing our mistake.