A Stitch in Haste

Time to clean out the aggregator –

ITEM: Congress has passed and the president has signed the FISA Amendments Act (H.R. 6304), which among things expands the federal government’s ability to spy on American citizens on American soil and grants retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that capitulated to the administration’s demands for the (illegal at the time) warrantless wiretapping program. Barack Obama reversed himself and voted for immunity; John McCain couldn’t be bothered to vote. The ACLU filed a lawsuit challenging the FAA moments after it became law. Most recent post here.

ITEM: On the heels of the news that both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may need a taxpayer bailout or other government assistance, the Senate has passed a comprehensive housing bill that includes a bailout program for distressed mortgage debtors. A similar bill has already passed the House; a conference committee reconciliation now awaits (as does a threatened veto). As I pointed out in two recent Kip Clips, such “comprehensive housing bills” tend to have regrettable unforeseen consequences.

ITEM: Barack Obama has announced further details of his plan to replace the (already annually increasing) cap on Social Security taxes with a “donut hole” exempting wages from $102,000 to $250,000, including a pledge to tax wages above the donut hole at a significantly lower rate than the 12.4% that wages up to the current cap are taxed. Most of the questions I raised in this post on Obama’s plan remain unanswered, however.

ITEM: New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg has announced that he has secured another $75 million in pork barrel financing, extracted by taxpayers across the nation, to build a new commuter train tunnel to run from — where else? — the Frank Lautenberg Station in Secaucus to Midtown Manhattan. Lautenberg extracted “only” $15 million in federal taxpayer funds for the vanity project last year; the State of New Jersey is asking for at least $2.5 billion in federal funding at a minimum. I have repeatedly blasted the recurring violation of fiscal federalism in the context of the New York area’s mass transit systems, including the subway and Amtrak. See also this previous post on Lautenberg specifically.

ITEM: A “marriage registrar” in the U.K. has won the British equivalent of a workplace discrimination action against the local council that employed her, after she was “picked on, shunned and accused of being homophobic for refusing to carry out civil partnerships” for same-sex couples. The Islington council is considering an appeal; a gay rights advocate called the ruling a “dangerous subversion” and a “violation of human rights,” while Britain’s “National Secular Society” condemned the decision as a “catastrophic judgment” that “should leave gay people quaking in their boots.” I reached similar conclusions when county clerks in California tried to claim similar “religious rights” to shirk their taxpayer-funded responsibilities.

ITEM: An anti-gay bigot group is casting the first stone by calling for Wisconsin authorities to prosecute gay couples in that state who marry in California, subsequent to a 1915 anti-comity marriage law meant to prevent underage marriages. As I noted previously, even the author of Wisconsin’s bigot amendment insists that such prosecutions would be frivolous and inappropriate. (Via Right Wing Watch.)

ITEM: Iran’s Religion of Peace authoritarians are considering making blogging about “corruption, prostitution and apostasy” a capital offense. Apparently they have run out of gays to execute. (Via Religion Clause and Wall of Separation.)

ITEM: Pope Benedict XVI has appointed a new head of its Congregation for the Causes of Saints (i.e., its “saint-making office”), apparently in response to continued calls to expedite at all costs the canonization of Pope John Paul II — a move that I predicted here and here. The Vatican also appointed a new head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (i.e., the Grand Inquisitor). Like so many of the great inquisitors of the past (but unlike the current pope, who held the post before John Paul II died), the latest incarnation is a Spanish Jesuit.

LATE ADDITION:

ITEM: John McCain has reiterated his unconditional “conservative” opposition to gay adoption —

“I think that we’ve proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no, I don’t believe in gay adoption,” he said.

“We” have of course proven no such thing. Meanwhile, I chronicled McCain’s consistent anti-gay record in a recent Stitch in Haste Podcast. (Via Outright Libertarians.)

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