When I first heard of Pretty Bird Woman House – the only women’s shelter serving over 10,000 Lakotas on Standing Rock Reservation – they had just issued the last paycheck they had money to cover.  They were close to having their phone lines disconnected.  A small, struggling organization whose services were desperately needed was about to fold for reasons we’ve heard way too much of the last few years.  No funding available for social programs.  No time for frivolities like helping raped or battered women and their kids.  After all, we’ve got a war to pay for!

An NPR report on rape mentioned Pretty Bird Woman House and its losing struggle to survive.  

Then something marvelous happened.  Some Kossacks began to diary about PBWH, asking for donations.  I was new to blogging, and it was my first experience with that kind of outpouring of compassion and support.  It really was amazing.

So take a moment to appreciate a purely positive accomplishment of this community. See where it took Pretty Bird Woman House and what may come next.

Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) has a bill, S.759, stating that the President cannot use any funds for military action against Iran without prior Congressional approval.  This bill has now been introduced as an amendment to the supplemental war funding bill before the Senate.  If passed, it would eventually go to a House-Senate conference to decide if it would be included in the final form of the legislation.

The amendment will come up for a vote this week, most likely TOMORROW.  So make your voice heard today or early tomorrow! The chance of success is slim, but real -- and the situation is so urgent that it is well worth our best citizen-lobbying efforts.

This is our LAST CHANCE to achieve the most effective kind of legislative measure for restraining Bush from attacking Iran – one that invokes Congress’ right to control funding, and that will have a chance of surviving the coming confrontation and threatened veto over war funding.  Eventually, Bush must yield enough to get a funding measure passed – let’s make sure that it includes a provision forbidding him to attack Iran on his own whim.  

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Or, more properly, I should say "Waxman Provides Precedent for Subpoenas," which is the title of the article in TruthOut, which can be found here.

Hey, we all know there are precedents aplenty, but it's nice to have it down in black and white, including particular mention of Republican subpoenas of people in the exact same position in Clinton's administration as some of those being subpoenaed in Bush's administration.  My, how things change when the shoe is on the other foot.  I do wish they'd pointed out precedents from other administrations as well, but this is a good in-your-face start.

The Bush administration is threatening to attack Iran.  Many of us ignored the threats for a long time. How could it be more than saber rattling, when we’re already involved in two wars?  But there is evidence that compels us to see an attack as a serious possibility.

Efforts to block that possibility suffered a defeat yesterday.   Leaders of the House are trying to gather votes to pass a bill limiting the Iraq war.  Rep. Jim McDermott added a provision to prevent an attack on Iran without congressional authorization. But conservative Democrats objected, and it was dropped to gain their votes on Iraq.

This is not the end of the story, however.  Senator Jim Webb has already introduced a bill with similar intent. And there are renewed rumblings in the House.  We may well see language related to Iran reintroduced.

These efforts need our vigorous support.  Even those progressives whose focus has been on the Iraq war need to pause, look at the Iran situation, and see how important it is for us to make our voices heard about both Iraq and Iran at this crucial time.

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The 110th Congress was really cooking this last week, as the Democrats began throwing light into some dark corners. Rep. Henry Waxman began his much-anticipated hearings on waste and fraud. Elsewhere, Senator Barbara Boxer grilled Bush’s EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson. She bluntly served notice.  "We are watching.  No longer will EPA rollbacks quietly escape scrutiny."

These hearings are early fruits of the 2006 elections, and they are bound to do a progressive’s heart good.  But I want to call attention to another hearing that may have escaped notice.  Barney Frank, D-Mass, chaired a contentious day-long hearing on the federal housing response to Hurricane Katrina. It was way overdue.  The wrongs that have been done to New Orleans, and the whole Gulf Coast, are continuing, and a big one is in the works now.

The committee looked at a whole range of programs, but a major focus was on sharply challenging the role of HUD in New Orleans. HUD had taken control of the New Orleans Housing Authority (NOHA) before Katrina, so HUD is a particularly major player there.  And it seems they’ve decided that the wise and prudent thing to do is to destroy most of the public housing in the city.