Thanks to one of our highly observant readers and regular callers to the radio show, this item just in from the Birmingham Snooze.

It is quite obvious that politicians have it way too easy these days and no longer suffer the wrath of citizens and voters. They are totally in the pocket of large corporations.

Nowhere is this more true that Alabama, where you get comments like this in the local newspaper without so much as a question or a challenge.

U.S. Reps. Mike Rogers, R-Saks, told the Birmingham News Washington bureau THIS to justify his upcoming vote on the Central American Free Trade Agreement, which is a great deal for some corporations and an abominable deal for most workers.

"There is now no employer that I know of in my district that is opposed to CAFTA," Rogers said.

No concern for the employees Mr. Rogers? What about the citizens in your district? The voters?

Of course not. They are mostly brainwashed by Fox News and the bad or absent local media coverage - or they have lost all hope and no longer pay attention.

As long as Mr. Rogers toes the Republican line and goes to church now and then he will be reelected, unless some local progressives become fired up enough and so mad as hell that they get off the couch and say, "We're not going to take it anymore."

Personally, I think the people of Kyrgyzstan are onto something. But hey, I could be wrong.

And lest anyone doubt that Fox News is America's Al Jazeera, check out Bill O'Reilly's Talking Points column today. Fox News is not just the conservative, Republican news outlet. It is the patriotic American network, which could also be described as the jingoistic, nationalistic news network.

Remind us again. What is the definition of fascism?

"The three characteristics of fascism are the integration of the government with monopoly capital, an aggressive and chauvinist foreign policy and the restriction of civil liberties."

For one free bright blule dot bumper sticker, who said it?

Here's the Wikipedia Encyclopedia definition.