Happy May Day.

A vile attack on gay Americans and on free expression:

Republican Alabama lawmaker Gerald Allen says homosexuality is an unacceptable lifestyle. As CBS News Correspondent Mark Strassmann reports, under his bill, public school libraries could no longer buy new copies of plays or books by gay authors, or about gay characters. “I don’t look at it as censorship,” says State Representative Gerald Allen. “I look at it as protecting the hearts and souls and minds of our children.”…Allen originally wanted to ban even some Shakespeare. After criticism, he narrowed his bill to exempt the classics, although he still can’t define what a classic is. Also exempted now Alabama’s public and college libraries. Librarian Donna Schremser fears the “thought police,” would be patrolling her shelves. “And so the idea that we would have a pristine collection that represents one political view, one religioius view, that’s not a library,” says Schremser.

For now, the bill failed to pass because of the lack of a quoroum.

Media Matters on last night:

Most major televised media outlets failed to note that President Bush, in his one-hour press conference on April 28, made two flatly contradictory statements about the viability of U.S. treasury bonds, in which the Social Security trust fund is invested. Repeating a claim made in his recent travels throughout the country in support of Social Security privatization, Bush said that the treasury bonds owned by the trust fund represent worthless IOUs from the U.S. government. But he later touted those same bonds for holders of his proposed private accounts looking for a safe investment that would be “backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government.” No reporter challenged Bush on the contradiction during the press conference, and only George Stephanopoulos, host of ABC’s This Week, noted it in the post-conference analysis. And CBS News anchor Bob Schieffer did the rest of TV news media one better — specifically noting that Bush mentioned treasury bonds as a safe investment, while failing to note that he has repeatedly disparaged treasury bonds when talking about the trust fund and did so again last night. Schieffer later commended Bush’s performance in the press conference, saying “I think it’s fair to say he did not step on his own story.”

The Social Security trust fund is invested entirely in treasury bonds that, according to law, have been purchased with surplus payroll tax revenues. During the press conference, Bush dismissed the Social Security trust fund as little more than “file cabinets full of IOUs.” Earlier in the press conference, however, Bush advocated an option that would allow wary private account holders to invest solely in those same treasury bonds, because they “are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government.” Bush has used the “file cabinet” rhetoric in the past, such as at an April 15 town hall meeting in Ohio and when he visited the Bureau of Public Debt in West Virginia on April 5. His argument that the Social Security trust fund is a myth has been echoed by various conservatives in the media. A Media Matters for America analysis of the major cable and broadcast network coverage following the press conference revealed that Stephanopoulos was the sole commentator to note the president’s contradictory trust fund rhetoric.

This continues a pattern with this administration of basing predictions under the Bush privatization plan on an orgy of economic prosperity and predictions under the current system on an economic depression. It’s a lot like the “Before” and “After” photos some hair-cut places have where the before woman is wearing clothes that are falling apart, is bruised, has some kind of skin condition, and looks like she’s crying, and in the after photo she’s mysteriously cleared up her complexion, found a ball gown, and discovered a jubilant smile…

Wiretaps, wiretaps everywhere, and not an application denied:

The number of court-authorized secret wiretaps across the country surged by 19 percent last year, records show. As law enforcement authorities tried to keep apace of technology favored by criminals, not a single application was denied. State and federal judges approved 1,710 applications for wiretaps of wire, oral, or electronic communications last year, and four states — New York, California, New Jersey, and Florida — accounted for three out of every four surveillance orders, according to the Administrative Office of the US Courts…The numbers, released yesterday, do not include court orders for terror-related investigations under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA, which reached a record 1,754 warrants last year, according to the Justice Department. In non-terrorist criminal investigations, federally approved wiretaps increased 26 percent in a year, to 730 applications, while state judges approved 980 wiretaps, an increase of 13 percent.

Feingold introduces legislation demanding that Congress come up with a universal healthcare plan:

The Feingold-Graham bill requires Congress to act on a bill that provides health coverage to at least 95% of Americans in ten years while not increasing the national deficit. While the Feingold-Graham bill does not specify the type of health care reform measure that should be debated, Feingold favors a state-based approach to health care reform, where the federal government would be a partner with the states by providing the flexibility, resources and tools necessary for states to make sure that all of their residents have health care coverage. This approach would achieve universal health care without the federal government dictating to states exactly how to do it.

“As I travel around Wisconsin, one of the topics that comes up most often is the exploding cost of health care coverage for both businesses and families, and the impact those costs have on our economy and on access to care” Feingold said. “It has been over 10 years since the last serious debate over health care reform was killed by special interests and the soft money contributions they used to corrupt the legislative process. We need to help ease the burden of rising health care costs on Wisconsin business and families because the weight of the status quo is limiting businesses’ ability to expand their workforce and create jobs. It is time to make health care reform a priority — businesses and families cannot afford further delay.”

Another one for the “surplus of humor, dearth of shame” category:

Arguing against loosening sanctions against Cuba last year, DeLay warned that Fidel Castro “will take the money. Every dime that finds its way into Cuba first finds its way into Fidel Castro’s blood-thirsty hands…. American consumers will get their fine cigars and their cheap sugar, but at the cost of our national honor.” DeLay has long been one of Congress’ most vocal critics of what he calls Castro’s “thugocracy,” which is why some sharp-eyed TIME readers were surprised last week to see a photo of the Majority Leader smoking one of Cuba’s best—a Hoyo de Monterrey double corona, which generally costs about $25 when purchased overseas and is not available in this country. The cigar’s label clearly states that it was made in “Habana.”

They have no shame:

The Cabinet list also marked another surprising political comeback for former Pentagon favorite Ahmad Chalabi, a Shiite who will be one of four deputy prime ministers and acting oil minister.

They do, however, have quite a sense of humor.

Confined Space commemorates Workers’ Memorial Day:

On March 23, 2005, a huge explosion ripped through the giant BP Amoco refinery in Texas City, Texas, killing 15 contract workers. Twelve of the workers were in an office trailer located in the middle of the blast zone. As with most workplace fatalities, illnesses and injuries, these deaths were preventable. While a full investigation won’t be completed for many months, it is clear that refinery officials were aware that the process was outdated and hazardous. Refinery officials and the contractor were also aware of the trailer’s hazardous location.

Today, April 28, is Workers Memorial Day. Across the country, workers and labor unions will pause to remember the 15 Texas City employees and the more than 5,500 other workers killed in workplace incidents over the past year. Between 50 and 60 thousand workers perished from work-related illnesses caused by toxic materials like asbestos close to five million suffered injuries and illnesses. The toll is enormous: according to Liberty Mutual, the nation’s largest workers’ compensation insurance company, the direct cost of occupational injury and illness is $1 billion per week, with indirect costs many times higher. Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health Act 35 years ago to assure “every working man and woman in the nation safe and healthful working conditions.” Among the tools given to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) were the authorization “to set mandatory occupational safety and health standards” and the ability to penalize those who break the laws. But instead of making progress in workplace safety over the past several years, the Bush administration has taken the country backwards. In the workplace safety field, the Bush administration’s aim to make workplace safety issues less “confrontational” is transforming this country from a nation of laws to a nation of fact sheets and web pages.

Columbia confirms the veracity of the memo and of their considerations of highly punitive tactics:

Columbia officials yesterday confirmed the authenticity of the memo, which was reported in The Nation this week and posted on its Web site. But they said they had ultimately decided not to impose any penalties on graduate students who staged a five-day strike last week. “This was a list of proposals to be considered if we were going to take action,” said Alan Brinkley, Columbia’s provost. “Obviously, doing nothing was always an option, too.” Some graduate students, faculty members and union organizers said they were outraged that Columbia was willing to consider penalties like those outlined in the memo, which was signed by the provost and sent to 17 officials, including several deans, in February…Maida Rosenstein, president of Local 2110 of the United Auto Workers, which represents the support staff at Columbia and has been working to organize graduate student assistants, said a National Labor Relations Board decision last summer that graduate assistants at private universities were not eligible for unionization left them unprotected from the kinds of actions suggested in the memo. “It is really upsetting that the university even contemplated such actions,” Ms. Rosenstein said. She said that students and professors were very angry and were “still determining what our response will be.”

The provost and others said the memo had grown out of meetings by a working group that Dr. Brinkley headed last winter to consider how Columbia might respond if there were a strike. At the time, they said, Columbia officials thought that a strike might be imminent and last all semester. The question on the table, they said, was whether there might be ways to soften its impact…Dr. Brinkley said that the ideas he had put into the memo had grown out of conversations among members of his working group and others and that they had been assembled in a memo he sent out to make further conversation easier.

Wal-Mart Watch: Rosa DeLauro calls for a Mother’s Day boycott:

DeLauro, D-Conn., wants consumers to join with her in supporting a federal lawsuit that accuses the nation’s largest retailer of discriminating against women. “When it comes to the treatment of its women employees, Wal-Mart’s low prices come at a cost,” she said at a news conference on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. The lawsuit alleges that Wal-Mart’s female employees earn less and are promoted less than their male counterparts. A federal judge in San Francisco last year ruled that there was enough evidence to grant class-action status to the lawsuit, filed on behalf of 1.6 million current and former employees of Wal-Mart’s 3,401 stores, markets, centers and clubs. Women make up 72 percent of Wal-Mart’s work force but account for only 33 percent of managers, the lawsuit claims. Women also earn 5 percent to 15 percent less than men working in the same jobs, the plaintiffs say. Representatives of the United Food and Commercial Workers, AFL-CIO, joined DeLauro in urging Americans to e-mail Wal-Mart Chief Executive Officer Lee Scott a Mother’s Day card asking him to lead an effort to resolve the issue. DeLauro also wants the company to turn over wage statistics for congressional review.

Jay Driskell calls for Roland Betts to recommit to a meeting:

Over the last two decades, graduate teachers at Yale have repeatedly demonstrated their desire for union recognition and have been repeatedly stonewalled by the administration. Last Thursday, I thought I had finally met someone in power who would be willing to listen. If Betts would sit down with GESO, I am sure he would discover that we share many of the same ideals. Rather than having to strike repeatedly to have our voices heard, I believed for a moment that we would finally be able to get the respect we as teachers deserve. I am uncertain about what transpired between Thursday night and Friday morning, but I am certain that Betts bowed to the pressure of Yale administration’s official line on the union. I encourage Betts to change his mind and meet with GESO and end the cycle of strikes on Yale’s campus.