Hee hee. Our own Nancy Watzman also writes for the Politics West section of the Denver Post and today she takes on links between campaign contributions and recent legislative favors to the banking and airline industries to discuss the fates of Frontier Airlines vs. Franny Airlonowitz.

How strange that for all political rhetoric about caring for the needs of the people/helping hard-working Americans/family values etc., so often corporations go to the front of the line:

James Berge of Kensett, Iowa writes to the Globe-Gazette that his representative in Congress, Tom Latham, has chosen to vote for the good of Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay and his state of Texas, rather than for the good of the people he serves in Iowa.

During last year’s election, DeLay claimed ultimate power in advancing his own agenda, telling a reporter, “As majority leader, there isn’t a piece of legislation that makes it to the floor of the House without me saying so.” When the Senate was considering the bankruptcy bill in early March, the Majority Leader pledged fast action: “We will grab hold of it just like we did class action if it is a good and clean bankruptcy reform bill.” That's exactly what the Senate did.

Paul Krugman paints a clear picture of what the Senate will vote on today with this awful bankruptcy bill "written for and by the credit card companies":

To the extent that there is significant abuse of the system, it's concentrated among the wealthy - including corporate executives found guilty of misleading investors - who can exploit loopholes in the law to protect their wealth, no matter how ill-gotten.

Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) has readied an amendment to the bankruptcy bill (otherwise known as the "Your Senator is in debt to credit card companies" bill) to raise the minimum wage. In response, Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) is offering a watered down version with all sorts of regulatory relief for business. (What's the matter? Can't do anything just for workers?)