Patriot (And Transit) Games

The transit strike in New York ended, with transit workers going back to their jobs without a new contract and with union leaders knuckling under to threatened fines and jail time rather than taking a firm stand. This only goes to show how quickly the social compact between workers and employers - workers rewarded for hard work and loyal service in exchange for their time and effort - is falling apart in this country. Of course, the promise of help to the poor went out the window long ago, and you don't believe me, consider how Vice President Cheney rushed home from from South Asia just so he could secure budget cuts on the backs of the poor with his tie-breaking vote for social program spending cuts in the Senate. But surely, you think, it will save the government money and reduce the deficit, thus benefiting everyone, right? Wrong - the White House wants more tax breaks for the wealthy, negating any possible positive effect of those cuts. >:-(

Meanwhile, the Patriot Act remains a bone of contention. The Senate successfully forced the White House to accept a six-month renewal of the current law for more time to draft a new one, but House Judiciary Committee chairman James Sensenbrenner, incensed by the idea of the upper house kicking the can down the road until June, wants to force the Senate to deal with it sooner and will only agree to an extension of the current law until January 18. Either way, though, Bush won't get the immediate, permanent renewal of the act, which he wanted. In fact, the White House has become completely irrelevant in this bicameral tug of war.

As of late tonight, Congress has extended the Patriot Act for only one month, as Sensenbrenner wanted.