Billionaires for Bush
What will they do when they don't have Dubya to kick around anymore? Probably just move on to the next Republican candidate, as billionaires are wont to do. Meanwhile, they do what they can to help us all understand why they're rich and we're not.

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution
Speaking of the rich, you have to love a country that celebrates annually the period when the blood of the wealthy and privileged flowed in the gutters. Over two centuries later, they still have more to offer us than obscurantist philosophy and lessons in cuisine. This site includes primary documents, images, songs, and many other resources. Aux armes, citoyens!

VerifiedVoting.org
Is that a hanging chad in your pocket, or are you happy to see me? Ready for the paperless ballot, registered in electronic voting machines manufactured by corporations whose hierarchy is mostly (quelle surprise!) gung-ho Republican? After all, that's what distinguishes Republicans from Democrats, in the original definition of the term — those who prefer a republic to a democracy believe that guttersnipes like us of the Café (and you?) shouldn't have the final say in the choice of who governs them. If you actually want your vote to be counted, and thus to count, sign the petition against paperless voting at VerifiedVoting.org.

Working Life
Jonathan Tasini, for 13 years president of the National Writers Union, and spearhead of the landmark Tasini v. New York Times lawsuit, now heads up the Economic Future Group, a progressive think tank. he also publishes online the website Working Life, with his own essays and editorials and material from others, including a blog to which a number of pro-labor voices contribute.

The White House
They claim it's a parody, but we suspect that's just a crafty way for Prez. Pretzel's administration to disclaim responsibility for The White House, a site that offers everything from Sally Struthers fundraising for needy Ralphy Reed to proposals for "faith-based economics." You'll surely want to show your true colors by signing on to their "American Patriot Registration" program. This site includes much material provided by The Landover Baptist Church, which (according to this site) administers the policies Prez. Pretzel's newly created Department of Faith. Did you know that Martha Stewart was getting into the designer end of the Christian prosthetics business, to give a fashion boost to those who've plucked out their own offending eyes? Altogether wonderfully done.

TomPaine.com
Need to "breathe the air around Tom Paine," as Bob Dylan once sang? Stroll over to TomPaine.com for reminders as to why the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Then practice sleeping with one eye open.

Public Campaign: Clean Money, Clean Elections
The almost terminal corruption of our electoral system will remain beyond serious change unless campaign finance reform is enacted to enable us to get corporate bribery out of the process. Public Campaign: Clean Money, Clean Elections will keep you abreast of developments on that crucial matter. Public Campaign, founded by John B. Anderson, former U.S. Representative (R-IL), is "a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to sweeping reform that aims to dramatically reduce the role of special interest money in America's elections and the influence of big contributors in American politics." And, while you're there, visit their offshoot, HowDareThey.org.

MoveOn.org
You'll find an equivalent petition at MoveOn.org, plus a wide array of information on issues of concern to those of a liberal/left persuasion. MoveOn.org, arguably the most savvy use of the Web by progressives, will send you alerts, petitions, and other material via email if you register with them. They've made it easy to make your voice heard.

World Press Review
How can a world citizen get past the narrow, uninformed, faux-naïf view of current events that the U.S. press and other national mass media offers? By familiarizing oneself with the World Press Review, which — in its print edition — addresses urgent themes and "covers" them by selecting articles from non-U.S. periodicals that range across the geographic and political spectra. The goal? To provide that "giftie" for which Robert Burns beseeched "some Power": " . . . to see oursels as ithers see us." Much of this, plus other material, ends up at the Review's website.

Paperless Archives
Paperless Archives provides access to thousands of pages' worth of once-secret and/or historical documents, plus recordings, photos, video and audio files, from such sources as the CIA, FBI, and repositories of various presidential papers, all obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) or provided by other archives, legally posted and available for dissemination. This site has just announced the availability of Osama bin Ladin/Al Qaeda Network material.

DubyaSpeak.com
Making George W. Bush both credible and reelectable surely counts as one of the most devastating blows to the cause of democracy struck by Osama bin Laden in his terrorist attack of September 11, 2001. Before that day, it seemed clear to most of the world that the Supreme Court has installed Chauncey Gardiner as our helmsman. His inarticulacy in the first days after the disaster bore that out. But now his speechwriters and coaches have gotten to him, and he's actually looking good. Need some reminders as to how the man really thinks? (We use the term advisedly.) Then go to DubyaSpeak.com, whose motto is "We record the damage." Like the man said, "This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mential losses." If you want to track other aspects of his behavior, Caleb Lauritsen's Caleb's Political Page portals dozens of Bush-related sites. (Don't blame us. In Y2K we voted for Nader in New York City -- which, like New York State and, it turns out, Florida too, went to Gore. In 2004 we voted for Kerry, to our chagrin.)

The Nation Digital Edition
On the other hand: The Nation, oldest continuously published left-wing journal in the U.S., has become a hotbed of neo-Luddism. (Not to sneer: the Luddites weren't wrong in their analysis of the consequences of the mechanization of labor.) However paradoxically, this venerable journal now has a relatively high-tech website, The Nation Digital Edition, that includes an audioblog, "RadioNation," hosted by Marc Cooper. Join the crowd: check in at feeding time (24 hrs/7 days) to watch the left devour itself and eat its young.

The International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism
Wondering whether someone's about to blow you up or infect you with anthrax? Need some information about terrorism? For an articulate Israeli view of the subject, go to the home page of The International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism — but remember, always, that one side's despicable terrorists are another side's heroic freedom fighters. The best antidote to terrorism — or at least to fear and paralysis in relation to it — is probably learning what the other side believes and desires, and what its real and perceived grievances against you are.

Stolen Lives Project
Feel like you're living in a police state? Need some evidence to reassure yourself that you're not just paranoid? Then log on to the Stolen Lives Project, whose terrifying online database offers sample cases (of a documented total of 2000 so far) of people killed by U.S. law enforcement since 1990. Think it can't happen to you? Read a handful of these and guess again — and don't even hazard a guess about the far larger volume of reported and unreported instances of police brutality, false arrest, and other excesses from across the thin blue line.

Refuse and Resist
If you're sick and tired of rogue police everywhere, and want to do something about this state-sponsored and state-condoned wilding by predatory wolf-packs in uniform, check the related website for Refuse and Resist.

The MoJo Wire: Mother Jones Interactive
"I'm a hell-raiser!" So, famously, said their namesake; and Mother Jones magazine does its level best to live up to that tradition. Muckraking, polemics, thoughtful commentary from a labor/left-wing perspective — nicely designed and laid out on the page in the long-lived print edition, and now for the Web: The MoJo Wire: Mother Jones Interactive

Executive Paywatch
Wondering if you can actually afford that second Saturday-morning latté? Spending all your Café time worrying about money? That's their plan. Drop by the Executive Paywatch section of the AFL-CIO's home page to see where the money goes. This site lets you check on CEO salaries, perks and bennies nation-wide. As an extra bonus — the only one you're likely to get this year — you can plug your own salary and package in to calculate how many lifetimes of work it'll take you to earn what some suit drags down per annum. There's more good stuff at this site, so be sure to check out the full home page. And, while you're at it, check the United Auto Workers site as well. The way things are going, Bob Dylan's prophecy of "sundown on the union" may prove itself yet another of his predictions that only seemed premature. But don't count them out yet.

GuideStar
To compare what's happening within the corporate state's managerial and executive castes to the situation in the nonprofit sector — which, unlike many for-profit operations, is legally obliged to 'fess up by filing annual IRS forms that the public gets to see — enter GuideStar, whose database of more than 850,000 IRS-recognized nonprofit organizations allows you to search for specific institutions and find out exactly how much (or how little) they're really pulling in and spending.

Senate Prayer Against Smut
Ever wonder how our lawmakers manage to maintain such a high level of dumb? Consider the Senate Prayer offered by the Senate's Chaplain, Dr. Lloyd John Ogilvie, on June 12, 1995, asking for the Lord's protection against cybersmut. He offered up this appeal as our elected reps were setting out to create what became the Communications Decency Act — yep, the very one subsequently struck down by the predominantly conservative U.S. Supreme Court as (you guessed it) unconstitutional. Looks like none of those benighted folks was really doing the Lord's work, though we doubt that they took the hint. Don't you know Ben Franklin, that sly old pornography-writing, smut-peddling Founding Father, is laughing at us somewhere?

Voter Information Services
Want to know how your Congressman voted on any issue? Want to know how he/she/it rates with 30 advocacy groups ranging from the ACLU to the Christian Coalition? You can find out at Voter Information Services. Remember: Knowledge is power. We at the Café have our own politics, of course, which don't necessarily conform to yours. But we believe in voting whenever possible, because otherwise those polling-booth levers rust and any vestige of democracy falters. However, the urge to political power proves unfailingly symptomatic of megalomania; so, regardless of party allegiance, we advocate a simple across-the-board policy: Vote the rascals out.