Just as local cities have adopted environmental and wage laws that exceed federal standards, maybe it's time for local initiatives protecting the sanctity of the vote. We've been seeing electoral abuses and manipulations since the Bush administration took power. So we need to ensure the Democrats make national electoral protection a priority. But we can also act on a local level.

Though the Democratic surge took back the Senate and House, some ugly actions quite likely shifted several close Congressional races. The poster race for this election's abuses, appropriately, is Catherine Harris's old Congressional district in Sarasota, FL. Whether through manipulation or error, electronic voting machines in that district logged 18,000 fewer votes in this neck-and-neck congressional race than for governor or senator, and fewer than wholly uncontroversial down-ballot races like the Sarasota Public Hospital Board. Whatever the causes, these votes disappeared in a county that Democrat Christine Jennings carried by 53 percent, and would have likely allowed her to defeat Republican Vern Buchanan.

Harris's district saw more than just voting machine problems. In the

Troublemaker Charles Rangel, the incoming chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, has a deliciously bad idea.

The New York congressman recently reprised his audacious proposal - first made nearly four years ago, with the U.S. about to launch Operation Iraqi Quagmire - to reinstate the draft. He reasoned that, if a military action is really necessary, we should, you know, share the sacrifice: get congressmen's' children, presumably even Jenna and Barbara, involved in the action. And if it isn't, we shouldn't go to war.

As a faux-naive device for exposing hypocrisy, Rangel's idea is worthy of Michael Moore, if not Borat. The hemming and hawing of establishment opposition is worth savoring for a news cycle.

But the real reason why the draft, so passionately defended by conservatives during the Vietnam era, is no longer "necessary" or wanted by the military-industrial-media complex is that the country is far too peace-loving to tolerate it.

[Author's Note to Establish Context: I composed this on 11/24/06, the day after Thanksgiving]

"Tell me where do I belong in this sick society?

....Look at yourself instead of looking at me. With accusation in your eyes. Do you want me crucified for my profanity?

....Tell me the truth and I'll admit to my guilt if you'll try to understand. But is that blood that's on your hand from your democracy?"

--Ozzy Osbourne, You're no Different, 1983

Bow your heads and drop to your knees, brothers and sisters! Feel the power of the Holy Dollar coursing through your being as you humbly offer your prayers, exaltations and gratitude to Mighty Mammon!

Lay the perpetual argument to rest. There is no separation of church and state.

It is indisputable that the United States is one nation, under God. Our nation worships the unholy trinity of the Dollar, Acquisitiveness, and Opulence with the fanaticism of the Inquisitors.

‘Tis (officially) the season to be greedy...

[I dedicate this essay to the untold millions who suffered as a result of Milton Friedman’s creation of an intellectual bulwark for economic brutality. On 11/16/06, Friedman died of heart failure, an ironic cause of death for a heartless individual.]

We have reached the deplorable circumstance where in large measure a very powerful few are in possession of the earth's resources, the land and its riches and all the franchises and other privileges that yield a return. These positions are maintained virtually without taxation; they are immune to the demands made on others. The very poor, who have nothing, are the object of compulsory charity. And the rest -- the workers, the middle-class, the backbone of the country -- are made to support the lot by their labor.
----Agnes George de Mille (granddaughter of Henry George), New York, 1979

Note that Ms. George de Mille penned her observations before the patron saint of the “have mores” established residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. In less than three decades, a Friedman-inspired Reagan and his successors made astounding gains for the “very powerful” de Mille described.

There's a lot of post-election analysis going around. Mostly, it's self-serving damage control on the part of pundits who didn't have a clue this was coming and Washington politicians who, as recently as May, were opposing Howard Dean's “50 State Strategy”. One of those was Rep. Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).

We in the trenches just received a message from Nancy Pelosi, on behalf of that same DCCC. It was a thank you note that listed six noncontroversial, meaningless goals for the 2006 Congress, cooked up for the consumption of the gullible faithful. Being faithful but less gullible, I am sending my own agenda back to Washington. It only has one item: “We're still not happy. We did not return you to power so you can have photo-ops in the White House with the most dangerous lame-duck president in American history. We elected you to fight him. If you are not doing that, you are wasting our time.”