(Moral) Bankruptcy Bill: Hypocrisy was on the docket this week as so-called moral-values Republicans ran roughshod over the poor and the struggling, the foreign and the Islamic, and just about any semblance of justice or ethics. Top of mind is the passage in the Senate--with little opposition from Democrats--of a bankruptcy bill backed by the credit card industry. Sen. Edward Kennedy called it "a bonanza for the credit card companies, which made $30 billion in profits last year, and a nightmare for the poorest of the poor and the weakest of the weak." A recurring theme, apparently:

* Like his commander-in-chief's "widespread" use of fabricated news, Schwarzeneggar was accused of trying to pass of paid PR as news and thus breaking the law prohibiting government-funded propaganda.

* The army revealed that it had tortured to death Afghan prisoners in its custody, chaining them to the ceiling and kicking and beating them until dead and that children were among those held at Abu Ghraib.

* The US dropped out of International Court of Justice, a body it helped found to ensure detained foreigners can seek help from their embassies, because it could prevent the US from executing foreign nationals on American death row.

* The trade deficit jumped up in January to $58.3 billion, only exceeded in US history by November's figure of $59.4 billion, prompting yet another tumble by the dollar and the stock market.

* In true Christian fashion, the Bush administration wants to ease its budgetary woes not by raising taxes on those who can afford it but by slashing nutrion and food-stamp programs for the poor and cutting subsidies to farmers.

* And, locally, Minnesota's no-new-taxes Republican governor is pushing for state-run gambling, insisting on a partnership with state tribes that would open a public-private casino in the Twin Cities.