The Supreme Court is refusing to hear the case of parents complaining that their children are being taught Islam in California's public school system.
Also, a Republican governor is reportedly a staunch advocate for substantially expanding governmnent-funded health insurance, and the minumum wage still hasn't been raised since 1997. What's next?

Religion Taught In Public Schools and Other Surprises

So, the Supreme Court is refusing to hear the case of parents complaining that their children are being taught Islam in California's public school system. What on earth is going on here?

Apparently, since it wasn't bringing the case forward, the ACLU is snug with this development. But if schools were teaching the Christian Bible, the ACLU would be all over it in an uproarious protest.

The diary below was originally posted earlier today on my blog the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

David Brooks is a lightweight whom I typically ignore. Other progressive bloggers critique his sophomoric punditry and infantile analysis with enthusiasm. Until Friday, I considered attacking Brooks akin to abusing the Pillsbury Dough Boy.

Standing on an overcrowded A-Train with malfunctioning air conditioning, I read Brooks' column "Bye-Bye Bootstraps" while commuting to Manhattan from Brooklyn. Brooks had the temerity to suggest that a "Wal-Mart leisure class" was emerging in America. One wonders how my fellow passengers suffering from the heat as we commuted to our jobs would've responded to this soft minded propagandist of America's plutocracy.

In a detailed explanation of the Justice Department's decision, [Deputy US Attorney General] McNulty noted there were limits to the government's potential punishment of Boeing, given its place as one of a few large defense contractors and its role in Pentagon projects that extend through 2020.

"Contracts at issue are critical to national security; they cannot practicably be terminated," McNulty said.

I suppose I could generate a lot of sparks pointing out players in this scandal included  Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, Dennis Hastert, Andrew Card and George Bush.  But no one would be surprised to learn that.  So I won't go down that path.

Instead of focusing on a bunch of people looting the treasury I want to focus on the how they get away with it even when everyone knows exactly who is doing what to whom.  

Let's look at the politics and price of enabling extortion.

In a "News" story in The Washington Post this morning
"An Estate Tax Twist Reverses Party Roles On Minimum Wage" Staff Writer Jeffrey Birnbaum leads with one of the most disingenuous paragraphs I have read in a major newspaper in awhile:

For years, organized labor has worked hard to raise the minimum wage, while business groups have campaigned to block such a change. This week in the Senate, however, the AFL-CIO is pushing to kill the wage increase while practically the entire business lobby is demanding that it pass.

In the last six years George Bush and his rubber-stamp Republican Congress have waged class warfare against working Americans, pandering to the ultra-rich while at the same time repressing the income of working class Americans.

Our current Representative Zach Wamp has consistently opposed and lobbied against increases in the minimum wage while supporting tax giveaways for millionaires and increases in his own salary.

The minimum wage had not been increased since 1997. In that same period, Mr. Wamp had given himself eight salary increases totaling more than 35,000 dollars!

Friday I had the pleasure of talking again with Jeff Styles, host of "FRED, the Show" on Chattanooga's Talk Radio 102.3 during a remote broadcast.  If you are interested in listening to a recording of the show, you can use the link below.

Click here for the interview with Jeff Styles 07/21/06 (MP-3 format, 9 MB)

I'm one of the "Veterans for a Secure America," running for US Congress in the third district of Tennessee.  I'm running a grassroots campaign against a long-term Republican incumbent who has chosen not to honor his term limit pledge of twelve years ago.  Please visit my website, Terry in '06, and help take America back!  I need and very much appreciate your support!

I'm challenging Congressman Wamp to represent Tennessee's third district because I believe you deserve someone who will stand up for Tennessee values.  As one example, let's talk about the minimum wage.

Wamp has continuously voted AGAINST raising the minimum wage, while at the same time he has voted for increases in his own annual salary to the tune of over 30,000 dollars.  This is just plain wrong.

An increase in the minimum wage is once again hovering around the Congressional docket, as Democrats try to wedge it into various bills while Republicans try to sink it.

And once again, as reliable as clockwork, defenders and opponents are snapping into action, dusting off briefs and arguments, updating the analysis for inflation and generally doing the same dance we always do (I'm a defender).

There's got to be a better way.

Facts matter, so I'm not for a second saying that progressives should ignore the superior research, summarized below, that supports an increase. But I think we should also fight this one on basic fairness. It's simply shameful, in an era of sharply increasing economic inequality, for Congress to incessantly cut rich people's taxes yet refuse to help low-wage workers.

This past week, much to everyone's surprise, Democrats in the House of Representatives managed to slip a proposal to increase the minimum wage into a bill funding the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services.

Faced with the specter of having to vote against increasing the wage floor from its current embarrassing level of $5.15 to $7.25 by Jan. 1, 2009, Congressional Republicans snapped into action and pulled the bill.

This is what these brave souls do in election season when they don't want to have to go back to their districts and answer questions as to why it's ok to cut hundreds of billions in rich people's taxes but deny the working poor a boost.

Well, I say: "Not so fast, guys.  Let's chat about this for a few minutes."

Not let me get this straight.  Last month, you passed $70 billion worth of new tax cuts, mostly by extending earlier Bush cuts on dividends and capital gains.  When tax cuts target investment income, the benefits flow to the wealthy, and these cuts are exhibit A: they reduce millionaire's tax payments by $43,000, and those of middle-income families by $20.  Sorry, that's not a typo.  It's what you get when you put the YOYOs in charge of fiscal policy.

Wait a second, where you going?  I'm not done.  Set a spell...

2005 Out of Reach Report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition.  Detailed annual report:

Out of Reach is a side-by-side comparison of wages and rents in every county, Metropolitan Area (MSAs/HMFAs), combined nonmetropolitan area and state in the United States.

We really don't need to hear "working" and "poor" in the same sentence ever again.  Long past time for a Living Wage.  Rep. Barbara Lee's H.R. 1050 is a good start.