[In titivating the piece, I managed to copy/paste over my (as usual) snappy yet intriguing lede with the stuff from the extended entry. (This happens so rarely that I don't have any procedural controls to help stop it. Like, y'know, paying attention, or anything hi=tech like that...)

What I'm talking is the Brer Obey's plan (now amended) to insert earmarks during the conference on FY08 apps bills (also here).

(The Obey Plan would have generated what are handily referred to as airdropped earmarks. Though whether that's the term used by reps and their staffers or one that was invented by the journos - slow bleed-style - I'm not sure!)]

With all the attention Abu G's testimony got yesterday, another important hearing went virtually unnoticed, this one held by the Defense Sub-committee of the House Appropriations Committee on the subject of private contractors in Iraq.

The hearing began with testimony from John Hutton at the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and Joseph McDermott from the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. It then continued with Robert Greenwald, director and producer of Iraq For Sale: The War Profiteers and Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.

I liveblogged it HERE. My summary at Courage Campaign is HERE.

This diary is to recap and hopefully get it in front of more eyeballs now that video and partial transcripts are available.

Join me for some oversight over the flip...

Yesterday citizens took to the streets in front of Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff's Pasadena, California offices to send him a clear message. STOP funding the WAR.  Many returned today with reinforcements. Why Adam Schiff, and why now?  Schiff sits on the powerful House Appropriations Committee soon to decide on legislation that could result in Bush being allocated another 200 billion US taxpayer dollars to pursue the illegal occupation and war in Iraq.  Schiff states that he is opposed to Bush's escalation - but is that enough? Schiff voted for the Iraq War resolution, and year after year he voted to give Bush billions upon hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to keep our soldiers in Iraq to kill and be killed in an illegal war. Schiff now says that he opposes Bush's policy, but rhetoric does not equal action.  Congress can bring the war to end by cutting off the flow of cash.  There are lives in the balance, and there is already enough money in the pipeline to bring our troops home safely.

Mimi Kennedy
Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles

[Please follow me below the jump for more photos and video]

Now that polling shows that the GOP stance against legislation increasing to the minimum wage is simply not tenable (74 percent of voters strongly favor boosting the minimum wage by more than $2 per hour), it's no wonder that House Republicans are finally going to allow a vote on such a proposal. But likewise, it should come as no surprise that Republicans are trying to add on serious anti-worker language, too, as the AP's Andrew Taylor reports.

The chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee said the GOP would embrace the increase to $7.25 per hour and probably attach a proposal passed last year that would make it easier for small business to band together and buy health insurance plans for employees at a lower cost. Rep. Howard McKeon, R-Calif., said the minimum wage bill probably will not include tax cuts such as a repeal of the estate tax.

It was not clear what other potential add-ons might soothe unhappy lawmakers and GOP opponents of a wage increase such as the small business lobby.

House Democrats cried foul on Thursday, saying Republicans planned to add "poison pills" for their business allies. Many Democrats oppose the small business health insurance legislation because it would overrule state laws requiring coverage for procedures such as diabetes care and cancer screenings.

With all of the institutional advantages that Republicans have this year, the Democrats cannot afford to give away one of their strongest wedge issues, especially if the removal of that wedge issue is tied to truly bad legislation that will take away healthcare rights for working Americans. While I am not advocating the Democrats scuttle a minimum wage increase solely in order to increase the likelihood that they will win this fall, they must think twice before joining any Republican effort to take this issue off of the table before election day if that effort is accompanied by corporate giveaways and anti-worker amendments.

More broadly, Democrats cannot keep allowing Republicans to take away their wedge issues before elections. Elections have to be about different visions of the direction of the country. But if Republicans are allowed to co-opt Democratic ideas (just as Bill Clinton successfully co-opted Republican ideas leading into the 1996 presidential election) it's going to be difficult to impossible for the Democrats to get voters sufficiently riled up to throw out their current Representatives in favor of new ones.

It seems that Nancy Pelosi gets this -- to an extent, at least -- because she is demanding a stand-alone bill. But it's not good enough for just the leadership to stand strong against watering down this key legislation. Every single House Democrat must fall into line on this issue if Republicans try to play games with the legislation by adding amendments (which it seems they're planning to do). And if a vote is lost because a handful of Democratic Reps. care more about their own political viability than the party's chances to retake Congress, then those members should be stripped of their key committee assignments and left to rot away in the least popular and powerful committees.

The House of Representatives was busy yesterday engaging in vicious class warfare against working families.

[Title amended by replacement of exclamation marks by question mark! The learning experience continues...]

Not that many folks in the lefty sphere have seemed to take much notice.

But New Direction, the drop-like-a-stone latest instalment in the Dem agenda for 06, came out last week - and one of its proposals was a hike in the Federal minimum wage.

(Which is so cringemakingly miserly that even a fair few red states have laws imposing a higher level.)