Thieves in the Temple.

Around the table: R.I.P. Leonard Nimoy, and other stories.

The Intercept credits an "unprecedented guerilla activism campaign" for the FCC's approval of vigorous net neutrality rules on Thursday, and it's true that we need folks who will get in decision-makers' faces to get things done as much as we need folks who contact our government day after day, year after year. Author Lee Fang also suggests that the complete lack of an "insider-grand bargaining political style" to the net neutrality fight greatly helped our success, which is a terrific way of saying government needs to stop talking only to its own various factions and start talking to the American people. We can encourage them to do that, of course.

Also from the good news file, President obama vetoed Congressional legislation that would have forced Executive branch approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. Of course, the Executive branch's own process, including a State Department environmental review, might still recommend approval, but we'll keep encouraging them to do the right thing. And I hope Mr. Obama is fully cognizant by now that right-wingers will never approve of anything he does. He has, after all, given himself plenty of opportunities to learn that lesson.

A South Carolina bill would put pro-gun, NRA-sponsored curricula in public schools. And as someone generally sanguine toward gun ownership, and one who wouldn't even object to firearms training in public schools under the right circumstances, I say this bill is bat-guano insane like the rest of the professional gun-rights movement. Having the NRA do the curriculum (versus, oh, I don't know, teachers) is corporate welfare simple and plain. And yes they chose December 15 as their little Second Amendment Day because they're pricks. And saying gun manufacturer PTR relocated from Connecticut to South Carolina because it "didn't feel supported" after the Sandy Hook shootings makes gun manufacturers sound like whiners, which is, I would think, not the image they'd want to project. It's getting harder and harder to be pro-gun in America.

Under some pressure, the New York state Department of Education issues new restrictions on restraining and suspending students. We have retained some semblance of civilized behavior, to be telling teachers they need to resort to de-escalation of conflicts before calling 911 on out-of-control students. It would also help if we'd show fewer celebrity tantrums on TV. A lot of these folks just aren't good role models.

Speaking of which, actor/director/poet/musician Leonard Nimoy, most famous as Mr. Spock from Star Trek, has died at the age of 83. It would be hard to underestimate the positive effect Mr. Nimoy's Spock has had on popular culture: the calm, logical, and loyal First Officer taught us that diversity need not be feared, that passion need not be loud, and, perhaps most importantly, that intelligence not only made you powerful but integral to your community. The man will be missed, but his work will, if you'll forgive me, live long and prosper.

Action: executive pay, resisting arrest, and school vouchers.

You may recall that the Obama Administration tried and failed to get the Senate to confirm Antonio Weiss as Treasury undersecretary, but you may not know that such a confirmation would have net Mr. Weiss a $21 million bonus from his employer, investment banking firm Lazard. Giving a man a huge bonus for getting a job in our government -- I wonder why they would do that. Subsequently, the AFL-CIO proposed to three big banking firms that shareholders should have more say over such bonuses -- at which point those three firms promptly ran to the SEC to try to get the proposal quashed. Again we ask: what are they afraid of? That good Americans will interpret such bonuses as payoffs for getting big bankster ideas heard more loudly in the halls of our government? Americans for Financial Reform helps you tell the firms to drop their opposition to more shareholder power in payments to executives who join our government. And if you think this gravy train's bad under the Obama Administration, which it is, think how much worse it will be when Scott Walker's President.

Meanwhile, Occupy activist Cecily McMillan of Brooklyn has begun a petition on Change.org that helps you tell the New York state legislature to reject proposals to make "resisting arrest" a felony. Why? Because, as anyone who's ever fought for anything will tell you, "resisting arrest" has become a too-often-used excuse for all manner of police abuses, and we need to make it harder for police to resort to that, not easier. Moreover, making "resisting arrest" a felony doesn't even help police in actual efforts to control violent suspects -- someone who's actually resisting arrest because they're guilty of something is hardly going to think, "whoa, I better stop, this is a felony now." Certainly "resisting arrest" isn't the offense other felonies are -- felonies like arson, murder, and aggravated assault. Personal to those who think supporting this petition would be "anti-cop," or "anti-law and order": giving police every conceivable tool, including those that will be abused, isn't "pro-law and order," it's fascist. There's a difference.

Finally, H.R. 5 aims to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, which Congress has to do every so often, but now that Republicans control both houses of Congress, they'll no doubt try to use the reauthorization process as a cudgel to get more privatization of public schools through vouchers. We know the sins of the voucher program by heart -- that they don't pay for the entirety of private education, that they don't guarantee acceptance to private schools, that they serve as a funnel for public money to religious organizations (which latter item compromises the integrity of both partners), and that private schools don't even do a better job than public schools. Add to that list that the original hysteria over TEH FAILING PUBLIC SCHOOLZ!!!! was bogus to begin with, and you have a manufactured crisis designed to get right-wing cronies to feed at the public trough, which leaves Americans behind. Hence Americans United for the Separation of Church and State helps you  tell your House Reps to reject any further public school privatization in an ESEA reauth.

Around the table: "right to work," "free" trade -- does anything happen in America without ironic quotation marks anymore?

Wisconsin is about ready to enact a "right to work" bill, despite Gov. Walker's stated reticence to do so -- but now Gov. Walker says his pledge not to push for right-to-work only applied to his first term. He's normally a much better liar than that -- Jesus Mary and Joseph he's on record as touting his "partnership" with private-sector unions -- but since there's no penis or Botox in this story, the "liberal" media won't make much of it, so you have to hope his Republican primary opponents hammer the "you can't trust him" line to death out of mere self-interest, and then his eventual Democratic opponent does the same.

New York state Labor Department orders minimum wage hike for tipped workers to $7.50. And if the state legislature adopts Gov. Cuomo's proposal to allow New York City to hike its own minimum wage by another dollar per hour, tipped workers would see that hike, too. Of course, New York City Mayor DeBlasio is shooting for $15/hour, but he may not get that out of the legislature. Meanwhile, the restaurant trade groups advance not only the ZOMG TEH WAGEZ KILLS TEH SMALL BIZNIZZIZ!!!!! line, but the "extreme, unprecedented 50 percent increase" scare number, though surely not all restaurants pay their employees that little.

Ho hum, the Obama Administration is selling the Trans-Pacific "Partnership" "free" trade deal "with literally the same promises" as President Clinton used to sell SHAFTYA, er, NAFTA. More jobs, more markets for our exports, blah blah blah. What actually happened? A "$181 billion U.S. trade deficit with NAFTA partners Mexico and Canada and the related loss of 1 million net U.S. jobs under NAFTA, growing income inequality, displacement of more than one million Mexican campesino farmers and a doubling of desperate immigration from Mexico, and more than $360 million paid to corporations after 'investor-state' tribunal attacks on, and rollbacks of, domestic public interest policies." Conservatives should note that last one -- it means "free" trade agreements can nullify American laws.

Michelle M. Francl at Slate describes some of the more ridiculous claims of the Food Babe (real name: Vani Hari). I hadn't spent any time on her before, believe it or not, and though she seems to have done some good, you don't have to be Bruce Willis's character in Fast Food Nation to be annoyed with her obsession with the nether-regions of animals winding up in your food (which happens with much less regularity than she says). She may just not know that coal tar hasn't come from coal for some time, but she should, and anyway maybe she does and is just like all the others.

Finally, some good news: Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel not only didn't escape a runoff in Tuesday's primary election, but did considerably worse than polls supposed, while the second-place finisher, Cook County Board of Commissioners member Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, did considerably better than those polls supposed. Maybe Chicagoans are profoundly tired of Mr. Emanuel's relentless shoveling of city resources into his cronies' pockets, some of which, apparently, doesn't even happen under the guise of "privatizing city services," though that's how a more cautious crook would do it. I wonder if his BFF, President Obama, comes out to help him in the April runoff. My hope: Mr. Obama would regard that, at least officially, as unbecoming of the office.

Action: PATRIOT Act expirations, energy efficiency, and consumer financial protection.

Roots Action helps you tell Congress to let crucial freedom-killing parts of the USA PATRIOT Act to expire. These include business record searches, roving wiretaps, and the nefarious Section 215, which the NSA uses to justify its data-vacuuming program. The good news? They're all going to expire on June 1. The bad news? Congress and the "liberal" media would never admit an actual debate on whether these sections of the PATRIOT Act protect us or hurt us -- they'll just wave the bloody shirt of terrorism and say you don't love your country if you're unwilling to let our government spy on your neighbors with less restraint than ever before, and certainly with less restraint than the Fourth Amendment demands. But now Rep. Sensenbrenner (R-WI) -- who did not author the PATRIOT Act, as is commonly supposed, but authored the anti-terrorism bill Tha Bush Mobb replaced with the PATRIOT Act -- has been circulating a letter to colleagues trying to get them to support an end to the enabling of wanton government spying; good for him, and good for anyone who supports this effort.

Meanwhile, you may recall a bipartisan energy efficiency bill from Sens. Portman (R-OH) and Shaheen (D-NH) in 2014 that should have been a bank shot for Congress, but wound up getting weighed down irrelevant and nefarious amendments, perhaps because it was an easy bill to pass, or maybe just because OBAMA!!!!! Anyway, the aforementioned Senators have reintroduced the bill, numbered S. 535, and though congress.gov doesn't have a text of the bill or a summary thereof as of this writing (which happens more frequently these days, for some reason), but the last bill would have provided the means for updated building codes and more efficient building construction, both of which would have helped businesses save money and create jobs. Brook no nonsense from any of your Congressfolk about how we're too broke to do such things, since these things would help our economy, not hurt it, like all of Congress's favorite corporate tax handouts do. The Friends Committee on National Legislation helps you tell Congress to support efforts to make our buildings more energy-efficient.

Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell Congress to stop trying to destroy the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, then Public Citizen still helps you do that. Seriously, the CFPB exists to protect us, consumers and citizens, from the predatory practices of Wall Street banksters, who are approximately the least popular people in America right now, so let Congressfolk eager to take the reaper's scythe to this nascent agency explain why they need to do that. No explanation that begins and ends with it's just another Big Gummint alphabet agency that we don't need will do -- everyone remembers the 2008 financial services meltdown, and everyone outside of Fox News audiences remembers exactly who did it to us: big banks and their ever-more exotic financial "instruments" designed to redistribute income from the folks who earn it to the folks who gamble with it. It would not be uncivilized to call banksters nihilists. But it would be uncivilized to let them do exactly as they please.

Around the table: today with almost *half* good news!

Uh oh: the Guardian catches the Chicago police operating, essentially, a "black site" detainment center for suspected criminals in an abandoned warehouse. During their stay, suspects get shackled, beaten, and kept away from their lawyers. Oh, and "suspects" include protestors. And, needless to say, the police don't keep very accurate records of their doings in the Homan Square warehouse. So quite a few police in Chicago seem pretty anxious about their small packages being discovered.

Clive Thompson at Mother Jones touts the homemade "mesh" network as a data-snooping alternative to mainstream internet service. Mesh networks can be safer, more democratic, and cheaper than big telecom services, plus they'll go into rural and impoverished areas where the big telecoms won't. But when Scott Walker becomes President, I bet the big telecoms tell him to declare all mesh networks "terrorist networks" and to arrest anyone who uses one. After all, the people who run big corporations literally live in terror of not being obscenely rich.

Daily Kos diarist Alex Forgue explains why a flat tax, despite its apparent simplicity, is a bad idea. Long story short: if you tax someone making $25,000 and someone making $1,000,000 annually at a flat 10% rate, "it is hard to survive on $22,500 compared to $900,000." And "(e)ven with a progressive tax structure, the wealthy can still survive and have money left over to invest." I'd add that the problem with the flat tax isn't unequal incomes so much as equal living expenses -- a wealthy person making 20 times what I make doesn't need to consume 20 times the calories, use 20 times the electricity, or put 20 times the gas in his car.

JetBlue, once famous for not charging baggage fees, now plans to do so -- at the advice of investors, no less! Wonder if they ever ask their customers anything? Apparently not, because at least one JetBlue exec apparently feels folks will just get used to it, a reason which could pretty much justify any of the thousand cuts customers feel at the airline counter. Maybe, one day, they'll also get "used to" being tossed out of the plane mid-air because the plane's overbooked.

Michael Shermer at Reason notes the 1980s finding that "Real IQ" scores have gone up three points a decade over the last century and supposes we're becoming "morally smarter," since most of the IQ point gains have occurred in abstract reasoning categories. I don't know that the raft of research Mr. Shermer describes convinces me, but I am already inclined to accept that "the moral arc of the universe may be bending in the right direction," even if individual humiliations along that arc are legion. Believing in that arc isn't a call to complacency, and I don't think that arc bends in a Libertarian direction, as Mr. Shermer does ("economic liberalism" isn't the same as liberalism, after all), but I remain an optimist in these matters -- as long as we act.

Finally, Sarah Jaffe at The Nation tells the story of how a group of 250-plus cable technicians in Brooklyn finally got their employer, Cablevision, to recognize them as a collective bargaining unit. Key lessons: winning the first vote to unionize is often a beginning, not an end, of struggle; a vigorous NLRB can be of tremendous help to a fight for a better life; and "one day longer, one day stronger" is a hell of a slogan to deploy to potentially dispirited workers. I wish them the best in their future together. I also wish I had half their strength and courage.

Action: humane working conditions, wind power, and accountability for retirement planners.

Qatar will host the World Cup in 2022, which should mean all kinds of job-creating construction -- except that corporations are taking advantage of Qatar's "guest worker" program, in which folks come from nearby countries with the hope of making a better life, and then get their passports taken away and are made to slave away in 120 degree heat with little or no food or water. And this has been going on for a while -- 2014 saw the deaths of over 180 workers in some World Cup-related project or other. Luckily, we can apply pressure, not just to Qatar's government, but to the American corporation overseeing much of the World Cup-related construction: CH2M Hill, whose CEO lives in Colorado. CH2M Hill blames the worker abuse the government of Qatar and local contractors there, but if CH2M Hill's leaders didn't know Qatar was a wage slave zone, then I'm Benedict Cumberbatch. (Full disclosure: I am not Benedict Cumberbatch.) So Avaaz helps you tell CH2M Hill and Qatar's government to treat Qatar's guest workers a lot better. Personal to those who say, well, those workers took their chances: is abusing workers ever OK?

Meanwhile, the Cape Wind offshore wind farm, long delayed by wealthy folks on the Cape who claim that the gotta-squint-to-see-it wind farm constitutes an eyesore, has met another obstacle: the nearly two dozen lawsuits against it over the years have helped cause Cape Wind to miss crucial financing and construction deadlines, which prompted National Grid to cancel its power-purchase agreement (or PPA) with the wind farm. National Grid would have bought half of Cape Wind's power, but no longer; without utility corporations to buy Cape Wind's power, Cape Wind has rather less chance of succeeding. And if the numerous lawsuits against Cape Wind seem a little odd to you, consider that one of the driving forces behind the Alliance for Nantucket Sound, which has filed many of the suits, is none other than Bill Koch -- that's right, of those Kochs -- which tells me it's not an "eyesore" issue at all, but an issue of a coal guy not wanting any competition from a power source he can't control. You know what that makes these lawsuits? Frivolous lawsuits, that's what. Hence CREDO helps you tell National Grid to get back on board with the Cape Wind project.

Finally, some good news: the Department of Labor has decided it will require all financial advisors to put customers' interests ahead of their own when giving retirement account advice. You'd think that'd be common sense, but common sense is the bitter enemy of the financial sector today, which cares about money and nothing else. And already the banksters are advocating against it: too many financial planners will lose their jobs, they say, as if no one else -- hell, maybe even some honest people! -- could possibly rise up to fill the resulting void. Banksters argue for the "genius of the free market" and the "creative destruction" it supposedly works upon economies when anyone else is on the receiving end, but let banksters themselves be the target of actual free market justice, and they whine like diaper-loaded brats until they get their handouts and bailouts. Well, perhaps that's unfair: diaper-loaded brats can eventually get their diapers changed, but banksters will still be banksters, demanding taxpayer handouts and giving nothing back to civilization. So Public Citizen helps you support a vigorous fiduciary responsibility rule for retirement planners.

Around the table: lies, hysteria, propaganda, revolt, and peace, respectively.

Mother Jones checks Sen. Lee's ZOMG TEH NET NUTRALITEEZ WILLZ CAUSE TEH BILLZ TO GOEZ UP!!!!! claim, and finds it wanting. Silly Mike Lee, acting as if big telecom corporations won't hike your rates for just any old reason, as they've been doing for decades now. And strictly speaking, conservatives haven't opposed net neutrality; their reactionary/corporatist spokeshacks in Congress have. There is, I still insist, a difference.

Massive spy cable leak informs us, among other things, that Israel's secret service contradicted Prime Minister Netanyahu's 2012 assertion that Iran was thisclose to building a nuclear weapon. You may remember that Mossad, also, spread "bad intelligence" in the run-up to the Iraq war, but if they did so out of a misguided notion they were ensuring security, you have to wonder why that same notion didn't prompt them to match Mr. Netanyahu's alarmism. A bridge too far, perhaps.

Gary Ruskin tells us that when the "liberal" media informs us that GMO science is "settled," they're "flat wrong." I find lumping us in with climate change denialists rather offensive: GMO manufacturers still control scientific research in a way fossil fuel corporations don't, and GMO corporations have everything to gain from convincing everyone GMOs are OK, just as fossil fuel corporations have everything to gain from convincing people climate change is a hoax.

The New Yorker finds the beginnings of a "student debt revolt" in the 15 former students at for-profit Corinthian corporation colleges who have gone on a "debt strike" on their loans. If you're wondering if these folks are just out to avoid their obligations to civilized society, note that Corinthian's 14 colleges are now all shut down (at least one not long after instructors just stopped showing up for classes) and that the CFPB and two state attorneys general have filed suit against Corinthian, so these students might well be able to prove their colleges didn't provide the services they took out loans to pay for. They need to prove more than that, of course, but they might be able to.

Finally, following terrorist attacks against Jews in Europe, several groups of Muslims in Norway decided to make a "ring of peace" around an Oslo synagogue, and a thousand people showed up to join it this past Saturday. "There are many more peacemongers than warmongers," one of the organizers said, and though that's true, somehow the warmongers get all the ink. And I doubt the "liberal" media repeats this story very often in the coming weeks, months, and years -- it doesn't serve the aims of Our Glorious Elites very well.

Action: war in the Middle East, "too big to fail" banks, and "free" trade.

Roots Action (along with 10 other organizations) helps you tell your Congressfolk to oppose any new Authorization to Use Military Force (or AUMF) for President Obama, and to repeal the AUMFs Congress passed in 2001 and 2002. Maybe we should, you know, debate whether to formally declare war, as the Constitution would have us do? After all, endless war-making against whomever we're fighting has made no one any safer, though it has been good to weapons-manufacturing corporations. And those who claim that a 22-minute video of ISIS burning a Syrian pilot alive tells them all they need to know should answer this: does ISIS have a government? Do they have a political presence in any world legislature? If the answer to either of these questions is "no," then we don't have any business making war upon them. We have business, certainly, getting together the Middle Eastern countries ISIS is terrorizing, and negotiating a better outcome -- hopefully before the next gang of terrorists rises from the ashes of our air strikes in Iraq and Syria, a gang I'm sure will do things that make ISIS blanch.

Meanwhile, National People's Action helps you tell Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen to reject the proposed merger of two mediocre banks, CIT Group and OneWest Bank. Why? Because the resulting behemoth would be large enough to be considered a "systematically-important financial institution" under the law, one which we the taxpayers might have to bail out if it ran aground. Also, the banks have to prove their merger will be good for the public, at least partly by demonstrating a past record of investing in the communities they serve -- but these two banks generally haven't done well at that. Note, also, that OneWest emerged from the ashes of California lender IndyMac, and has needed FDIC assistance to resolve foreclosures IndyMac foisted on unfortunate families. And who has been one of the ringleaders of OneWest's emergence? None other than former hedge fund manager John Paulson, the poster child of banksters, who made $4 billion during the meltdown telling folks to invest in crappy mortgage securities while he bet against them. I would not want the stink of that man on anything I did.

Finally, if you've missed previous "free" trade-related action alerts, then Public Citizen helps you tell your Congressfolk you don't buy the bogus claim that the Trans-Pacific "Partnership" would help small businesses, and Democracy for America helps you tell Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) that supporting any form of "fast-tracking" for the TPP would be disastrous. Yes, big corporations are claiming that the TPP would be a boon for small businesses, like they always do whenever they want some undeserved goodies for themselves, but it doesn't matter if the majority of exporters are small/medium businesses if a mere three percent of small/medium businesses do any exporting at all. Would it be piling on to note that counting how many businesses are small businesses is much less relevant than counting how much of the economy small businesses have a piece of? No, it would not be piling on. As for Sen. Wyden, he should know that PPP found almost two-thirds of his state's voters opposing the TPP and nearly three-quarters opposing fast track. Maybe he doesn't have to worry about re-election in 2016, but we deserve a world where he has to earn it.

Around the table: more items about corporations grinding us under their feet -- plus some good ideas about how to stop it.

Robert Reich says "We're All Becoming Independent Contractors," so that corporations can use our work without providing safe workplaces, health care benefits, and other legally-mandated protections. Those who retort that there's nothing wrong with being an independent contractor need to explain why corporations should compel you to become one as a condition of employment. Most interesting point: the Department of Labor has the power, without any interference from Congress though they'd most surely try, to set legally-binding guidelines by which we may fairly define "employee" and "employer." When I see an action alert supporting that notion, so will you.

David Sirota discusses recent Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy findings that the bottom fifth of households, income-wise, pay nearly twice as much of their income in state and local taxes as the top one percent of income-earners do. Take that, 53 percenters! Mr. Sirota also points out that making the rich pay more in state and local taxes would help shore up all the budget problems Republican Governors use as excuses to give out more taxpayer money to their cronies. But few Democrats will take his heed, lest they be excoriated as "anti-business," as if there's no difference between being anti-business and anti-greed.

Ho hum, noted climate change scientist/denialist Wei-Hock Soon has received more than $1 million from fossil fuel corporations to do his research, such as it is. Even worse, Mr. Soon failed to disclose funding sources in at least 10 of his papers. I suspect we'd find a much broader conflict-of-interest problem with GMO food research -- fossil fuel-funded climate deniers and pro-fracking scientists are easy to spot anymore, but too much GMO food research still gets done by the same corporations trying to make money off their GMO food, and that's partly because it's still pretty hard for independent researchers to get their hands on GMO seeds.

New Jersey Superior Court judge rules that Gov. Christie is obligated by law to make larger payments into state worker pension funds. His spokeshack doesn't seem to understand that a constitutional mandate to balance the state budget doesn't automatically give Mr. Christie a right to reduce pension payments, certainly not when other options for balancing budgets are available -- you know, like cutting out the handouts to his corporate cronies already, or hiking taxes on millionaire income.

In Yes! magazine, we learn how a group of college activists led by Keith Harrington are trying to get more diversity into mainstream economic thought. If you've read Moshe Adler's magnificent book Economics for the Rest of Us -- subtitled "Debunking the Science that Makes Life Dismal," said "science" including such easily-dispatchable yet somehow persistent notions as Pareto Efficiency -- then you know letting some air into mainstream economic thought is long overdue. I think Mr. Harrington gives neoclassical economists a bit too much credit -- he suggests the problem is a lack of "self-criticism," rather than a problem of knowing exactly where your bread is buttered -- but perhaps he's just being polite.

Finally, anyone been following Bill O'Reilly's own "Brian Williams problem," as Mother Jones called it? I'll say only one thing about it, that I noticed during his first on-air response to accusations that he'd never actually been in an actual war zone in Argentina or the Falklands: he opens by saying "more proof the American media is corrupt" can be found in Mother Jones "smear(ing) me, your humble correspondent." And so it goes that, just as George Tiller's death was all about him, corruption in the media, also, is all about him, and always bubbling underneath his words is a rage about the respect he doesn't have that he's never earned. Because people who are all about the drama don't earn respect! And though Fox News will do nothing about it, let us resolve, at least, never to speak of him again.

Action: net neutrality, and making BP pay what it owes to civilized society.

The day before the FCC votes on its vigorous net neutrality proposal, the House Communications and Technology Subcommittee will hold hearings on what it calls the "President's Plan." That's because anything can be made to sound awful if it's tainted with Obamaness, right? Free Press helps you call these committee members and remind them that the "President's Plan" is, this time, actually the People's Plan, and calling it anything else disrespects us. Meanwhile, a huge consortium of good-government organizations plans to park a jumbotron outside the FCC's offices in Washington, and display your comments or images expressing your support for strong net neutrality rules; you can join that effort here. Remember: strong net neutrality regulation isn't an example Big Gummint Mucking Things Up -- it's an example of our government protecting our freedom to go where we like on the internet, without being goosed along into corporate content because big telecom corporations want that. That must explain net neutrality's popularity across the political spectrum.

Meanwhile, nearly six months after a U.S. District Court judge found British Petroleum (or BP) mostly to blame for the 2010 Spillageddon in the Gulf, and left open the possibility that BP would have to pay as much as $18 billion in civil penalties, BP still wants the fine reduced, because it says it can't pay it. Let's call that what it is: bullshit. BP profited to the tune of $13 billion in 2013 and $17 billion in 2012; that's not revenues, that's profits -- you know, what you have left over after you've paid all your bills. It's true that BP has set aside some $3.5 billion for paying fines related to the Gulf spill, but that's not our damn fault, either. And I won't abide any TEH FINEZ KILLZ TEH JOBZ!!!! or TEH FINEZ KILLZ TEH PENSIONZ!!!! hostage-taking -- no one put a gun to BP executives' head and made them build Deepwater Horizon cheaply, or fail to have clean-up crews at the ready, or spend nearly $7 billion on stock buybacks in 2013. Maybe if they weren't so corrupt, they'd be more ready to meet their obligations to the civilized world. So Sum of Us helps you tell BP execs to stop whining and pay what they owe.

Around the table: the income gap, corporate taxes, water privatization, TV ads, income redistribution, and food co-ops.

FAIR finds a New York Times columnist arguing that the income gap between rich and poor hasn't gotten worse since the 2008 financial services meltdown. The proof? A graph depicting various income groups' pre-tax income which starts in 2007 -- which was a year before the meltdown and a year when high-income earners made a lot of money from the soon-to-burst housing bubble -- and which compares percentage drops between classes of income and not drops in actual dollars between classes of income, as if we pay our electric bills with percentages. Naturally, a different graph (one that, among other things, starts before 2007) shows a more complex picture.

Citizens for Tax Justice demonstrates how federal "tax extenders" enable California-based utility corporation PG&E to pay negative $84 million in taxes despite making $1.8 billion in profits. Yes, you read that right -- PG&E's tax rate for 2014 was -4.6 %, or 14.6 percentage points lower than the lowest income tax rate. CTJ points specifically to the "accelerated depreciation" handout, which lets corporations pretend its machinery wears out much faster than it actually does. Remember that the next time some Congressperson starts ranting about "creating jobs" by letting corporations pay literally less than nothing in taxes.

The Consumerist informs us that cable TV channels actually play programs faster so they can put more ads in. This is after they cut scenes from the program and run closing credits underneath the start of the next show. Desperate mammon-worship aside, the semiotician in me says this is not the offense to artistic license its detractors say it is -- running Seinfeld 7.5% faster didn't exactly make everyone sound like they were on helium, though I will concede that when I heard "Freeze Frame" at around 47 rpm on hit radio back in the day, I was actually disappointed when I heard it at its proper speed on MTV.

Columbia (SC) City Council rejects proposal to privatize its municipal water system. Choice quotation from Columbia citizen Jim Reid: "That term (public-private partnership) is the same as privatization. This friendly-sounding term is used by large water corporations just to make privatization sound better to the public." Selling off what belongs to the citizenry is what bad politicians do after they've run governments into the ground, and maybe not by accident, either.

Speaking of which, Daily Kos diarist Akadjian tells the not-terribly-heartwarming story of "How Ohio Pulled $4 Billion from Communities and Redistributed It Upwards." Long story short: they cut taxes for the rich and for corporations, then came cuts to government services like schools and diversion of taxpayer funds to voucher and charter school cronies. And, since none of this has actually created jobs in Ohio (which has lost jobs since 2005, whereas the nation as a whole has gained), the prescription will no doubt be more of the same.

Finally, Yes! magazine profiles the Our Table Cooperative of Sherwood, OR, which has modified the co-op model in order to create stronger bonds between consumer and producer. These include: ensuring importers are from Oregon when they can't ensure the food comes from Oregon, and making farmers and food processors into co-op members, which latter item not only ensures that consumers "get to know" all the folks who make their food, but also encourages farmers and food processors to cooperate instead of compete with each other. Their grocery store just opened three months ago; I wish them the best in their efforts.

Around the table: we're up to our eyeballs in dirt.

"Race to Build California Bullet Train Shows Value of U.S. Market," says Bloomberg Business -- mainly because it's attracting some attention from foreign corporations. Shame it's come to that, but blame Republicans in Congress and in states, who not only refused federal stimulus money to build high-speed rail in America, but mocked it like doing so made them the funniest people in the world. The only way this economy gets moving again is if we envision and build the future the way we want it -- as we last did with the internet boom of the late 1990s -- and if a few of Our Glorious Elites have to make several billion fewer dollars, that's too bad.

Lydia DePillis at Wonkblog argues that our nation's ports are beset by far worse problems than their "labor problem." The ILWU has worked Western ports without a contract since July, but other problems doing more to affect port function include an increase in tonnage through ports and increased size of ships, which not only require more support from the ports (like deeper dredging) but which also result in increased confusion, since many different shippers might use the same ships and the sorting of what goes where becomes increasingly difficult. Boy it sure is a good thing we have "free" markets to figure all this out.

ProPublica takes us "Inside the Wild World of Charter Regulation," and it's even worse than it sounds: much of the time, states and municipalities don't even do the regulating, delegating the task to private entities who could well have conflicts of interest. If you're starting to think we wouldn't have any charter schools if our state and local governments just did the oversight they're supposed to be doing -- since charter schools do, you know, take public money -- you're not alone. If you think they're not doing the oversight because their cronies run the schools, well, you're not alone there, either.

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof announces that he was "wrong" about the deleterious effects of labor unions, and says they've been a positive force in building the middle class. I hate to pile on a guy who actually says "I was wrong," since so many people wrong about so much more never say it, but this is clearly a bigger deal to him than it is to me, since his negative impression of unions seems to have been built on the kind of evidence (look, three examples! It's an unstoppable trend! Plus unsubstantiated generalizations that could just as easily be made about employers!) that more critical thinkers can see through.

WalMart has announced it will increase its base wages to $10/hour gradually over the next 12 months. I'm not going to quibble too much that they could do more, or that state minimum wage hikes have forced WalMart's hand, because progress is progress. I will mention, however, that when CEOs decide to hike wages due to popular pressure, they can always change their minds, which is why we need to keep the pressure up.

Finally, let me say that Scott Walker's refusal to condemn Rudy Giuliani's statement that "I do not believe that the President loves America" was actually fairly clever politically. "I'm in New York; I'm used to people saying things that are aggressive out there" reminds everyone he's a heartland boy, and though for a moment I hoped having to throw red meat to the far right in public would give Mr. Walker too much agita, I remembered that in 2000 George W. Bush had the sense to throw all his red meat in private. And imagining noted purveyor of political nonspeak Hillary Clinton castigating Mr. Walker for "talking like a politician" is almost enough to make me hope Jim Webb or Brian Schweitzer is the nominee. (In other news, if Mr. Giuliani needs that much reassurance that someone loves something, I bet a lot of women are glad they're not in a relationship with him.)

Action: coal leasing, and campaign finance disclosure.

Not long ago, the Center for American Progress informed us that the Appalachian coal basin -- which includes portions of Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky -- faces economic challenges that other coal-rich areas of the country don't. The chief hurdle CAP identifies is the favoritism federal policy shows toward the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana (which provides 40% of the nation's coal) -- turns out we lease our public lands to coal corporations for much less money in the Powder River Basin than we do in the Appalachia, and the land in the Powder River Basin accounts for most of the federal land we lease to coal corporations. That's a much better explanation for Appalachian hard times than REGULASHUNZ KILLZ TEH JOBZ!!!!! CAP suggests we either raise the royalty rate on PRB coal or force mining corporations to apply the rate differently; the latter sounds like the fall-back option, so you can guess which one I'd prefer. The Sierra Club helps you tell the Office of Natural Resources Revenue to vigorously reform our coal-leasing process.

Meanwhile, President Obama has made all the right noises about the Supreme Court's nefarious Citizens United v. FEC decision, and has called for a Constitutional amendment (much like the one Senate Republicans made up stupid lies about and then filibustered last year) to remedy the onslaught of corporate campaign funding Citizens United has unleashed. But he has the power to issue an executive order mandating that all corporations that do business with our federal government disclose all their campaign spending, and, naturally, he hasn't done that yet. Yes, a Constitutional amendment would be better, but it's still odd that a man who called us "sanctimonious purists" for opposing his 2010 tax-cut "compromise" would be willing to let the perfect murder the good here. Perhaps he just needs more talking-to, which wouldn't make him unique on Capitol Hill, and both Common Cause and Public Citizen help you do that. Don't believe the hype that this order would "single out" federal contractors -- I've always said that if you take our money, you follow our rules.

Around the table: with run-of-the-mill right-wing hypocrisy, plus the new strongest material on Earth.

Jared Bernstein notices that Rep. Paul Ryan wants to reduce "improperly-claimed tax credits" to working families -- and who doesn't? -- but has not advocated taking similar steps to force businesses to report all their income. So, again, for Republicans, rules are for the little people, not for big corporations. Yes, I'm going to keep pointing this hypocrisy out until everyone is able to recite it in their sleep.

David Cay Johnston finds that as older businesses have come to dominate the economy, the income gap between rich and poor has grown, and wages and growth have become stagnant. And get your surprised face ready: it started to get that way in the early 1980s, and now it's to the point where businesses 11 years or older now account for about half of all businesses in America (up from a third in 1987). Lesson: laws and regulations that protect older firms stifle our economy. And you know the powers-that-be will still blame our slow economy on laws and regulations that actually protect people.

In Other Completely Surprising News, Fingerhut makes renting-to-own look more affordable by jacking up retail prices. You'll see, among other things, a 58" LED TV offered for $59.99 monthly over two years, one that supposedly costs $899 ("down from $999," naturally!) go for a little over $600 on Amazon. And at $59.99 a month for two years, you'd wind up spending over $1,400 for that $999 $899 $609 TV! I should add that if the infernally cautious Sen. Casey (D-PA) is calling on the FTC and CFPB to investigate this matter, it must be bad.

Scott Klinger at the Center for Effective Government covers the 102 years of the federal income tax. You'll learn how tariffs on imported goods were the main source of federal government revenue for many years (and, naturally, that meant our government raised most of its revenue from the middle and lower classes, since they spent more of their income on imported goods than rich folk). You'll also learn how the Supreme Court struck down a modest tax on the rich -- and how a constitutional amendment permitted the income tax.

Arkansas legislators pass bill prohibiting municipalities from enacting any anti-discrimination law that might benefit gays. Because TEH GAYZ!!!!! And, I guess, RELIJUZ FREEDUMZ!!!!! Yes, in some parts of America, only bigots have religious freedoms. And yes, I'm going to make sure you can recite that in your sleep, too.

Finally, scientists have found a natural material even stronger than spider silk -- millimeter-long teeth of aquatic snails. Imagine a strand of spaghetti holding up a one-pound bag of sugar and you'll get a sense of how strong this stuff is. Granted, it's tough to simply extrapolate what's strong at one millimeter and make it similarly strong at, say, three feet, but it's still worth it to study it, and to try it.

Action: prison privatization, national parks, and smog regulations.

Pennsylvania residents, take note: Watchdog.net helps you tell our Governor and our state legislators to end prison privatization in Pennsylvania. The news hook? The 2013 conviction and 28-year sentence of Mark Ciaverella, Jr., who abused his position as a juvenile court judge to send a lot of folks, including children as young as 10, into a private prison whose owner bribed him to the tune of over $1 million between 2003 and 2008. Sure, it's old news, but private prisons still operate in Pennsylvania, siphoning money from taxpayers (that means you and me) while delivering questionable-at-best results. I don't mean to assert that privatizing our prisons was the sole cause of the Kids for Cash scandal -- the greed of the two convicted judges can't be overlooked -- but the judges would have had a much tougher time sending kids to juvie for mocking their principals on social media if not for the avarice of private prisons. No use asserting that private prisons come about because public prisons can't handle Kids Today, because the answer to that is to make public prisons handle kids more effectively, because that's what civilized people do.

Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans would like very much to enact H.R. 330, the so-called Marine Access and State Transparency Act. Why is it called that? Because it spells MAST! Clever, eh? But what H.R. 330 would really do is make it much harder for the President to designate national monuments -- the President would have to go to Congress for approval before designating any national monuments, and in addition would have to go to state Governors and legislatures for approval before designating any maritime monuments. But Congress has already delegated authority to the President to designate national monuments in the Antiquities Act, and supporters of H.R. 330 really need to explain why they find national monuments so odious that we should have fewer of them -- which ultimately means fewer Grand Canyons and fewer Chimney Rocks. I sure hope they don't say that national monuments are "job-killers," because national monuments tend to attract a lot of tourism, which makes money, just not for corporate CEOs. CREDO helps you tell your Congressfolk to reject the House's anti-national monuments bill.

Finally, Penn Environment helps you tell the EPA to issue the most vigorous smog-prevention standards possible. Specifically, the EPA asks if it should hold the ozone limit (since ozone particles are a major component of smog) down to 60 parts per billion, as most doctors recommend. Imagine that, our government actually consulting with doctors on health issues! It's enough to melt a man's heart. On bad smog days, everyone's asthma gets a lot worse, and kids have a lot more trouble breathing while they're playing outside. And since scientists have observed significant spikes in respiratory-related hospital admissions on the worst smog days, you know higher smog standards will save all of us a boatload of money in health care costs. In short, a vigorous smog rule would complement EPA efforts against coal pollution and tailpipe emissions, giving us the cleaner air we all deserve. Naturally, big corporations will oppose these regulations, since (for example) all the health care savings won't go directly into their pockets. But they don't get all the say around here.

Action: the "war on terror," for-profit colleges, and "free" trade.

28 classified pages of the 9.11 Commission report have been in the news lately, as convicted terror-plotter Zacarias Moussaoui has lately said that he met with highly-placed Saudi Arabian government officials in the run-up to 9.11, but given that Mr. Moussaoui's jury didn't give him the death penalty because they didn't think he was that deeply-involved in 9.11, you'd be right to take his claims with a grain of salt. Former Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL), who chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee during those early years, might be a better source; he says the 28 classified pages show considerable Saudi involvement in funding the 9.11 terrorists. Besides, even the Saudi government wants the pages released, claiming it will exonerate them. I expect they're right, though I also expect it won't exonerate numerous Saudi bajillionaires, which is probably why Mr. Bush classified the documents in the first place. Roots Action helps you tell our government to declassify the 28 pages relating to 9.11 terrorist funding.

Meanwhile, CREDO helps you tell your Congressfolk, "no college bailouts!" What does that mean? Congressional Republicans plan to roll back the meager efforts President Obama and Congressional Democrats have made to ensure that for-profit colleges don't get federal money if they don't really help their students get jobs. These colleges can cost quadruple what community colleges cost, and its graduates tend to leave for-profit schools with, on average, $13,000 more in debt than other college graduates. And, well, that's if they even graduate; most of them don't, but still have huge student loans to pay. It gets worse: because up is down and down is up in our economy anymore, these colleges have become tremendously profitable for their executives and their investors, even though they plainly don't work -- and (I told you it gets worse) some 90% of their revenues come from federal student loan programs. And that's why CREDO calls the Republican plan a "bailout" -- because it is one, and as civilized people we should not tolerate it.

Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell Congress to reject "free" trade deals like the TPP, and also to reject "fast-tracking" of said "free" trade deals, then Public Citizen still helps you do that. President Obama has begun to address the concerns of "free" trade opponents -- in this interview with Vox, he says "we can't rely on the old trading regime" that has cost us so many jobs, so we need to create a "new" regime that improves labor and environmental standards across the globe. While that's an improvement on what nominally liberal politicians used to say -- that people should be happy with the cheap toys and clothes they're getting -- it still doesn't explain why negotiations need to be secret or why the TPP requires a fast voting process with little debate and no amendments. And from what we do know about the TPP from leaks, "higher labor or environmental standards" in Vietnam will be able to be nullified the moment the investor-state tribunals get a complaint from a corporation feeling "deprived" at having to pay people more or make them work somewhere other than a deathtrap.

Action: net neutrality, consumer protection, and campaign finance disclosure.

The FCC's net neutrality vote is less than 10 days from now, and Demand Progress helps you tell your government that you want the most vigorous net neutrality protections possible. Because anything less, as the old ad used to say, would be uncivilized. No, really, it would be uncivilized to let big corporations with bad arguments win this battle simply because they have a lot of money. Americans deserve an internet where we, not some big corporation, determine which sites we want to visit, without big corporations censoring websites they don't like, without big corporations slowing down websites they don't like, without big corporations delivering some websites to your computer more quickly simply because those websites' owners have paid them for the privilege. Net neutrality won't create some Big Gummint-controlled internet -- it will give our government the tools it needs to prevent a corporation-controlled internet. I prefer a people-controlled internet myself, where anyone can start a web page with minimal financial investment, and where the best ideas really do have the best chance of flourishing.

Meanwhile, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell your Congressfolk to reject any efforts at gutting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB, then National People's Action and Roots Action still help you do that. The CFPB has done yeoman work in curtailing the worst excesses of corrupt home lenders, greedy for-profit colleges, and predatory payday and title lenders, so why would Congress want to cripple the agency? Because it works for people, and doesn't work for their biggest donors, who are by and large the only people Congressfolk like to listen to. You'd think that Congressfolk would have realized by now that though money can buy you elections, votes actually win elections, and doing good works for the voters can actually win you elections even when you're outspent. Of course, as Ann Kirkpatrick would tell you, you have to actually advertise your good works to your constituents. I guess I can see why just listening to your biggest donors and blankly doing their will is the easier path. But that only means we have to make it that path the harder path.

Finally, the Securities and Exchange Commission (or SEC) was considering whether or not to force publicly-traded corporations to disclose the campaign contributions they make, but whether because of SEC Chair Mary Jo White's own pro-corporate biases or because of fear that Congress (now dominated by Republicans) would slash their agency's budget if they issued those disclosure regulations, the SEC has all but abandoned the idea, despite getting several hundred thousand comments from good folks like you and I in favor of it. Hence Avaaz helps you tell the SEC to force publicly-traded corporations to disclose their political contributions. The SEC is well within its right to do that, given that its mandate, by law, is to protect shareholders, and shareholders don't just care about money, they also care about good works. And we shouldn't let Republican hostage-taking deter us -- put the Republicans in a position where they have to defend cutting the budget of the SEC because it did the people's will and fought secret campaign contributions that no one but rich donors likes.

Around the table: how governments oppress the press and prisoners -- and how they help overcome drug addiction and protect law and order.

Reporters Without Borders ranks the United States 49th out of 180 nations in press freedom, citing our government's oppression of whistleblowers and Ferguson police's actions against reporters during protests. More complacent folks will note that RWB still rates our press freedom as "satisfactory" (though barely so), but we were 17th in RWB's first ranking in 2002, and, as Lindsey Graham might say, the whole point of being an American isn't to have a press that's a little freer than Haiti's, or one that isn't completely ground down like Eritrea's.

South Carolina prisons have put almost 400 inmates into solitary confinement for -- wait for it -- using Facebook and other social media. South Carolina has made social networking a Level 1 offense, like, you know, stealing, murdering, or rioting. Given that people actually like to be on social media a lot, I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is a deliberate policy designed to drive prisoners into solitary. Naturally, South Carolina is running out of solitary cells, though that might just mean some state government crony will get to build more.

Johann Hari notes that Portugal has cut drug addiction rates in half by taking a less punitive, more rehabilitative approach. I doubt I'll ever see my way clear to legalizing most drugs -- drug addiction takes away your freedoms, and I think meth rings, for example, cause a lot more damage than trying to break up meth rings does -- but certainly putting drug addicts in jail hasn't been a very effective deterrent, and they'll do better if we connect them not just to rehab but to thriving communities. Of course, the private prison industry won't like that, because drug addicts are their best customers. But they don't get all the say around here!

Katherine Cross at Feministing instructs us that constantly calling out utterings as "offensive" limits our ability to talk about the "material harm" some actions do. Choice quotation: "But in the real world actual racism is not about hurt feelings. It’s about being incarcerated, harassed, strip-searched, stalked, murdered, denied career advancement or an education, or being at risk of the foregoing and then having someone rub in one’s face the slurs and stereotypes that animate it all. Against all this, the psychic paper cut of 'cracker' surely pales."

Finally, a Holt County (NE) district judge blocks TransCanada's ability to invoke eminent domain on privately-owned property. If you're saying, but I thought the Nebraska Supreme Court already let Keystone XL go through, note that Judge Kozisek has ruled on eminent domain-related lawsuits filed since that Supreme Court decision. Daily Kos diarist Meteor Blades also explains the other ways in which that decision didn't actually stop Keystone dead.

Action: accountability for retirement planners, paid sick leave for American workers, and meat free of antibiotics for McDonald's customers.

Did you know too many retirement fund financial advisors aren't subject to a strong fiduciary standard? A fiduciary standard would require these advisers to put your interests ahead of theirs. You'd think we could take such a thing for granted when we consult with financial advisers, but, alas, no, because forcing financial advisers to work for their customers and not just for themselves would be BIG GUMMINT INTERFERENCEZ!!!!! or something. Look, when people don't do what they're supposed to do, what a civilized society expects them to do, then the law needs to step in and make them do it. It's really not that hard, unless you're a right-wing ideologue pretending to be concerned about advisors being "pushed out" of the retirement fund business, as if you deserve to be in any business if you're hurting your customers. Anyway, the Department of Labor is working on a strong fiduciary standard, but Wall Street banksters are working just as hard to kill it, so Americans for Financial Reform helps you tell the DOL to make sure financial advisers work for us, not against us.

Meanwhile, Philadelphia recently became the 17th U.S. city to enact a paid sick leave law, but America is still the only developed nation on Earth that doesn't have a federal paid sick leave law, because we're Americans, dammit, and we don't need no Big Gummint telling us what to do! Except that, of course, we are the government, so that's like saying we don't need us telling us what to do. And most business leaders have come around to the idea that paid sick leave laws actually save businesses money in employee turnover and lost money from workers making each other and customers sick. Of course, as I've said, since that saved money doesn't go right into a CEO's pocket, big corporate lobbies don't see the point in it. I think that's literally the problem, actually, and not just my snide rendering of it. But Sen. Murray (D-WA) and Rep. DeLauro (D-CT) have reintroduced the Healthy Families Act (H.R. 932/S. 497), and Moms Rising helps you tell your Congressfolk to support paid sick leave so businesses can save money and workers can take care of themselves without losing their jobs.

Finally, USPIRG joins with MoveOn to help you tell the CEO of McDonald's to stop using meat routinely treated with antibiotics. Why? The vast majority of antibiotics in America go not to sick people or sick animals, but to healthy animals, so they can produce more meat and withstand squalid conditions at factory farms. Of course, abusing antibiotics creates more superbugs, which then makes antibiotics less effective, to the point where the World Health Organization has sounded the alarm that we could be entering a "post-antibiotic age" where the next cut you get could kill you. We've been trying to get our government to do something about it, but they've done little, so what better place to go next than the fast-food chain that's served "billions and billions" of burgers? Seriously, if McDonald's were to commit to antibiotic-free meat (that is, meat from animals who only receive antibiotics when they're actually sick), a big chunk of the meat market would improve right away, and the other fast-food corporations would feel pressure to follow suit. And that would be a big deal.

Around the table: paid sick leave, home batteries, tax scams, unwilling conversions, and warnings about challenging Hillary Clinton from the left.

Good news, everyone: the Philadelphia City Council passed a paid sick leave bill on Thursday, and in a welcome reversal from those previous occasions where Philadelphia passed a paid sick leave bill, Mayor Michael Nutter signed it -- having decided, apparently, that the economy's doing well enough that Philadelphia can "withstand" a paid sick leave law. Of course paid sick leave laws actually benefit economies, but they don't necessarily benefit a CEO's pay package, which is the real reason there's so much pushback from big corporate lobbies (if not very many actual small businesses).

Electric-car manufacturer Tesla plans to begin production on a "home battery" in the next six months. But calling it a game-changer is rather premature -- something will have to charge the home battery, and absent an off-the-grid renewable-energy system, it'll likely be dirty fossil fuel energy. Still, it might represent an improvement over the home generator, and that's where I expect it'll find its early niche, at least.

Tax time is upon us, and the IRS provides a helpful list of scams to which taxpayers should be alert. The most common one, apparently, is the "IRS agent" who calls you on the phone and demands immediate payment of back taxes, which you ought to know is BS because the IRS will only ask for back payments through snail-mail. Other scams include scams perpetrated against the taxpayer (fake charities, preparers offering impossibly big-sounding refunds) and scams perpetrated by taxpayers (falsifying income, Form 1099s for workers who don't exist, claiming undeserved Fuel Tax Credits).

Boise, ID woman gets arrested for, apparently, trying to convert one of her Jewish neighbors to Christianity in the worst possible way -- with harassment and violence, culminating in putting her heel on her neighbor's throat. And the lesson, good peoples? Coerced devotion is useless, not to mention pleasureless. (The article also describes a case where a man gets 10 years probation for yelling epithets at Iraqi students -- and the judge tells him he doesn't think he's sorry for anything other than getting caught.)

Finally, Brent Budowsky warns that even supporting a challenge to Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Presidential nomination from the left would likely result in "a one-party state" run by the GOP. You know what that is? A hostage situation, that's what -- support my preferred center-right candidate for President, or your government gets it! And I suspect Mrs. Clinton "inspiring" Democrats won't mean her taking liberal positions that might actually help people and win elections. No, Scott Walker will beat Hillary Clinton, because he stands for something and she doesn't -- granted, Mr. Walker stands for something evil, but absent, say, a financial services meltdown, standing for something always trumps standing for nothing.