Thieves in the Temple.

Master and servant.

You may have noticed that the House Republicans have actively tried to defund and defang the nascent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency created by the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation passed last year. Probably the House Republicans don't like Mr. Obama's appointment of Elizabeth Warren to get the agency started, since Ms. Warren stands a chance of actually getting things done. Probably, also, the House Republicans don't like any sort of legislation that might prevent their corporate paymasters from making more money. Either way, they're awfully tone-deaf. If any House Republicans are reading, I'll explain it in simple terms: people hate the banks. Because they destroyed the economy. And when I say "people" I mean "including many, if not most, Tea Partiers." USPIRG helps you demand that your Reps reject any effort to weaken the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Meanwhile, Mr. Obama once said he wouldn't push Bush Mobb-negotiated "free" trade agreements with Korea, Colombia, and Panama unless significant changes were made to each, but now he says he will. Sigh. For those of you keeping score at home, the Korea deal would subvert American laws so that South Korean corporations can benefit, Colombia murders more union workers than any other country on Earth, and Panama helps corporations and rich folk hide their tax money so our government can't get to it. Got all that? It gets worse: Mr. Obama is negotiating another trade agreement with nine Pacific nations, including Vietnam and Malaysia, and I don't think that's going to be any good, either. Oh, look, yet another area where liberals and Tea Partiers agree! Public Citizen helps you demand that your Reps stand against these "deals."

Finally, the first anniversary of the spillageddon in the Gulf just passed, gas has been shooting up to $4 a gallon or more, and oil companies announced that they made tens of billions of dollars in profits in the first quarter of 2011 -- and now some Republican Reps have been making noises about maybe cutting oil subsidies. I say "maybe" because hopeful liberal organizations have, I think, been overstating Republican opposition to oil subsidies -- the phrase Republicans use isn't "we should end oil subsidies," but "ending oil subsidies is on the table," which sounds like a clever way of saying they can blame someone else when it doesn't get done. But it doesn't matter what they want! It matters what we want! Both CREDO and Public Citizen help you tell your Congressfolk to end big oil subsidies already.

Out in the cold again.

Word on the street is that Mr. Obama may issue an executive order requiring corporations that contract with the federal government to disclose their political contributions -- which would not be as good as the DISCLOSE Act (which would have covered all corporations), but it would not be at all bad, either. And the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, of course, threw a tantrum about it. It stinks, this sense of entitlement our putative Captains of Industry have these days. I understand that free speech occasionally requires anonymity, but political contributions aren't speech -- we'd more accurately describe them as "bribes," and we deserve to know who's bribing the elected officials who supposedly represent us. So Public Citizen helps you tell Mr. Obama to stand up to the big corporations and fight for disclosure. And please, fellow liberals, do not call statements like "we will fight it through all available means" "treason." It's not treason, because Article III, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution sets a pretty high bar. Better to note that we were called traitors by the right merely for opposing some Bush Mobb policy, and move on.

Meanwhile, you've no doubt heard by now that the iPhone and iPad can track your locations -- not just your "location" on the internet, but your physical location in space-time -- and that these devices can store that information indefinitely in a file you won't find unless you spend a lot of your free time hacking Apple devices. There's just no way that capability could possibly be abused! And not just by your government, either -- why wouldn't Apple or some other corporation use your information for nefarious purposes? They crave money above all, and as St. Paul instructs us, the love of money is the root of all evil. And let's not even get into what other countries, where you'd also be able to use your iPhones and iPads, might be able to do to you. The ACLU provides the relevant petition to Congress and to about a dozen corporations. Don't worry that the corporations will laugh at you or (worse!) tell you they're concerned about your privacy when they're really not. Just keep putting pressure on them. They really hate bad PR.

Finally, the U.S. Supreme Court, in yet another 5-4 decision, essentially allowed corporations to ban class action lawsuits by forcing consumers into binding arbitration clauses. If you think this doesn't affect you, think again: it's grotesquely easy to insert binding arbitration clauses into contracts, and you sign a contract every time you get a cell phone. Right-wingers will tell us you don't like the arbitration clause? Then don't buy the cell phone! As if all corporations won't put binding arbitration clauses into their consumer agreements now! Keep in mind that arbitration doesn't curtail "frivolous" lawsuits, because class action lawsuits are not by definition "frivolous" and corporations, not people or classes of people, file four out of five lawsuits. Keep in mind also that arbitration is a private process, paid for by the corporations who prefer it, and since arbitrators know who's buttering their bread, how do you think they'll rule most of the time? And, finally, keep in mind that arbitration-gone-wild essentially sets up a private counterpart to our legal system. This must not be. Justice doesn't only belong to the people who can pay for it; it belongs to all of us.

Hell is 'round the corner.

Anyone else think we ought to get the hell out of Afghanistan? Apparently so: polls consistently show a solid majority of Americans want out, and yet not even 25% of our Congressfolk voted to end the Afghanistan war last month. I find it hard to believe that more than three-quarters of our Congressfolk just happen to live in districts where their constituents think the war's a peachy idea. And did I mention that there's an economic armageddon going on, and spending over $100 billion in Afghanistan every year makes that worse? So Roots Action and CREDO help you tell your Reps to support H.R. 780, Rep. Lee's Responsible End to the War in Afghanistan Act. And when someone yammers on about H.R. 780 putting our troops in harm's way, please advise them that Sections 2 and 3 of H.R. 780 clearly state that the U.S. would expend funds only "for the safe and orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan of all members of the Armed Forces and Department of Defense contractor personnel who are in Afghanistan." Then tell them that fighting dumb wars for the enrichment of corporate cronies is what puts our troops in harm's way.

Meanwhile, Sens. Kerry (D-MA) and McCain (R-AZ) (bipartisanship! He remembers!) have introduced S. 799, which would give you, the computer user, some protections against corporations anxious to exploit you and your personal information. The bill would give you the ability to tell corporations not to share your personal information with other corporations, plus corporations would have to ask your permission before collecting or sharing your financial data. Those are big deals, but the bill doesn't include a robust Do Not Track option, where you simply tell corporations not to collect any information on you at all, and why not? Wouldn't a conservative tell us that you should be able to control what information you share? Or has the word "conservative" been so abused over the years that it now only means "giving corporations whatever they want"? I'd hate to think so. Consumers Union helps you support strong internet privacy protections.

Finally, the legislature of Pennsylvania, now controlled by a reactionary Republican majority, might well let long-term unemployment benefits for over 40,000 workers expire on June 11 -- but SB 994 would extend those benefits. You can tell the legislature doesn't really give a damn about this issue because they didn't give the number 1 or 2 or 3 to that bill; it gets the number Last instead. If your uncle or brother complains about the bill's "cost," you may want to remind them that the federal government covers 100% of the cost. You may also want to remind them that unemployment benefits have been pretty good stimulus in Pennsylvania, to the tune of over $1.5 billion, all of it actually spent so that it get the economy going and creates jobs. You may also want to remind them that SB 1 (see? It's really important because it's got a low number!) unconstitutionally gives away one billion dollars to private schools, and that might not have bothered them so much. In the meantime, the National Employment Law Project helps you tell the Pennsylvania legislature to do the right thing.

The show so far for Tuesday, April 26, 2011.

Normally when I do a "Show So Far" post, I've got a lot of legislation to cover, but since a) the House Republicans only pass bad legislation and b) the Senate Democrats seem disinclined to even consider much of it, we'll have more information on non-legislative action campaigns than normal.

Free Speech for People has produced a People's Rights Amendment, in response, of course, to Citizens United v. FEC, which ruled that corporations have certain "rights of people," at least as far as political contributions are concerned. (More recent Supreme Court rulings have pointedly refused to expand on those "rights," leading me to wonder if Mr. Chief Justice Roberts knows he's really stepped in it.) Free Speech for People wants you to contact your state legislators about the amendment, figuring that it'll get more traction at the state level than at the federal level, what with all those corporate toadies in tricorner hats serving in Congress now. That may be the correct calculation strategically, but I still think we should tell our federal representatives to pass the amendment, whether they like it or not. Our duty doesn't change because the idiot quotient in Congress goes up.

Meanwhile, amidst all this talk of cutting spending for grandma and the people getting foreclosed down the street, Families Against Mandatory Minimums featured prominently at a Congressional hearing on cutting wasteful criminal justice spending on April 14, which also featured prominent conservatives such as Asa Hutchinson and Grover Norquist. Also, Sen. Webb has reintroduced the National Criminal Justice Commission Act (now S. 306), which would create a bipartisan commission aiming to reform federal criminal justice statutes and procedures. Folks across the ideological spectrum agree that junking mandatory minimum-sentencing laws, making crack sentencing reforms retroactive, and increasing clemency for sick and elderly inmates would be good fiscal policy as well as good social policy. Funny how often that happens; funnier, still, how infrequently Congress recognizes it. Mr. Webb's bill -- which couldn't get through a filibuster last year, because, you know, Republicans! -- now faces a steeper climb, since too many of the new faces in the Senate seem to think gaining Tea Party support means "opposing anything that might do the American people some good." Still, here's a revised roster of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Jewish Voice for Peace began a campaign last year to get one of the world's largest pension funds, TIAA-CREF, to divest from corporations that benefit from the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and how did TIAA-CREF react? By asking the SEC to help quash the shareholder resolution that would have asked them to divest. Sigh. TIAA-CREF did divest from Darfur in 2009, so it's not like they just don't do the whole divestment thing. You can still sign the resolution, if you're a TIAA-CREF shareholder, or you can tell your friends about it, and they can sign it, if they're shareholders. TIAA-CREF works with many universities, public schools, hospitals, and non-profits, so if you or anyone you know is a public school teacher or researcher or nurse or artist (you know, the kind of people Scott Walker hates), they've got a good chance of being a shareholder.

Finally, over 120,000 good folks signed the change.org petition demanding the release of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, arrested on April 3 after his numerous criticisms of the Chinese government -- and, perhaps not coincidentally, the change.org site weathered repeated cyber attacks emanating from China last week. They've hung in there, though, and the petition's still up. Ai is still missing, whereabouts unknown, as are several of his associates; the government has apparently charged him with tax evasion, bigamy, and spreading porn on the internet, and even claims that he's "begun to confess," after what "persuasion," I wonder. But totalitarians don't get every last word about every last damn thing in the world. I guarantee it.

Windswept.

Last week, Standard & Poor's warned that the U.S. government's credit rating could be at risk. Which makes sense, right, since this must be the biggest debt emergency in the history of all biggestness? Not so fast: with regards to U.S. debt as a percentage of GDP, an index right-wingers have been slinging around a lot lately, we've been through considerably worse as a nation. Also, Standard & Poor's is the very same outfit that overrated junk securities in the run-up to our economic armageddon in 2008, and gave Lehman's and Bear Stearns and even Enron its highest rating right up until they collapsed. So Standard & Poor's must be, at least at times, spectacularly incompetent, right? I think it's even worse than that -- the warning came just a few days after the House voted to destroy Medicare, which the elites want and the people don't, and which side do you think Standard & Poor's is on? Anyway, Roots Action helps you tell your Congressfolk not to let Standard & Poor's intimidate them into enacting stupid spending cuts. (If that's not direct enough for you, then CREDO helps you tell Senator Durbin (D-IL) not to use Social Security as a bargaining chip, and Care2 helps you tell Congress not to cut Medicare.)

Meanwhile, as often happens with Obama Administration environmental policy, one hand giveth and the other hand taketh away: hot on the heels of a fairly strong EPA proposal in re mercury and arsenic comes a fairly weak proposal from the Forest Service which doesn't adequately protect drinking water within the national forest system, doesn't adequately protect wildlife within the system, and doesn't offer guidance on how to manage and remove logging roads within the system. If this doesn't seem like that big a deal, consider that a lot of Americans camp, hike, fish, and hunt in our national forests, and consider also that America's national forests help provide almost 125 million Americans, or over 40% of the population, with drinking water. So Earthjustice helps you tell the Forest Service to issue stronger regulations that actually protect our forests.

Speaking of unspoiled areas, British Petroleum, architects of the spillageddon in the Gulf a little over a year ago, spent $2 million just in the first quarter of 2011 on lobbying their Congressfolk for more offshore drilling and smaller spill liabilities, which is around $2 million more than I spent and I think I gave considerably better advice. Think maybe that $2 million could have been spent, you know, hiring people? To do work? Work like, you know, making sure BP doesn't take a dump all over the planet again? And anyone think BP's lobbying might have had something to do with the President's Oil Spill Commission recommendations getting precisely nowhere in Congress? In addition to all that, BP will get a $13 billion tax break this year -- this, after so many federal, state, and local agencies spent so much money to clean up the mess they made! So CREDO helps you tell BP to pay its fair share of taxes.

Mirror people.

Color of Change helps you tell the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Parole to save Troy Davis's life. You may remember Troy Davis as the man convicted of murdering a police officer in 1991, though no murder weapon was ever found, no physical evidence connected Mr. Davis to the murder, and seven of nine witnesses against him retracted their testimony (with several of these alleging that law enforcement pressured their testimony). You may also remember that multiple witnesses claim that another man -- one of the two original witnesses against Mr. Davis who hasn't recanted his testimony, no less -- had claimed to kill the officer. The U.S. Supreme Court mandated that Mr. Davis get another evidentiary hearing, rather than a new trial; even the judge who wound up rejecting new evidence (thus clearing the way for Mr. Davis's execution) found the case against him far from "ironclad." But shouldn't a case be "ironclad" to put someone to death? When death penalty advocates like Bob Barr and William Sessions don't want Mr. Davis dead, that ought to send a signal. But, in case the Board didn't hear them, now they can hear you.

"Another fracking mess" was the title of the email I got from American Rivers, on the heels of yet another gas drilling-related explosion in Pennsylvania, spewing out thousands of gallons of fluid containing hazardous chemicals into Towanda Creek, which feeds into the Susquehanna River, which itself supplies water for millions of Pennsylvanians. So American Rivers helps you tell the the Susquehanna River Basin Commission to impose a moratorium on fracking until we can regulate it more effectively. I'm well aware that may be a while -- Sen. Casey's bill, which would have ended gas industry exemptions from the Safe Drinking Water Act, couldn't even move in the last Congress, let alone this one, and currently gas drillers don't even have to tell us what chemicals they're pumping into the ground when they're fracking things up. But generally we ought to refrain from doing something potentially dangerous until we understand its effects. One might even call that a conservative outlook, if today's "conservatives" hadn't hijacked the word to mean whatever corporations want it to mean.

In other news, the spillageddon in the Gulf began approximately a year ago, and what has Congress done to ensure that something like that won't happen again? Well, they've apologized to BP for an alleged "shakedown" by the Obama Administration, they've preserved undeserved subsidies to the oil industry, and they've taken exactly zero action on the President's Oil Spill Commission, which made a number of sound, common-sense recommendations, including the creation of a Gulf of Mexico Regional Citizens' Advisory Council like the citizens' councils that worked well in Alaska after the Exxon Valdez spill. It sure is a good thing Congress fought so hard to defund Planned Parenthood, and that they continue to fight so hard to preserve corporate tax loopholes, which of course will enable BP to pay even fewer taxes this year. So the Sierra Club helps you tell Congress to do something about the Gulf. Because, you know, people are still suffering. I can't imagine Republicans will hold on to their House majority (or improve on their Senate minority) after all the fiddling they've done. Then again, I couldn't imagine them getting that House majority in the first place.

Finally (cue cheers from the convention crowd!), the EPA has proposed a fairly solid rule that would lower levels of mercury, lead, and arsenic in our air and water, and Environment Colorado helps you encourage the EPA to write the strongest possible rule. In an era where one in six women of childbearing age already has enough mercury in her body to put her child at risk of developmental disorders, you may be asking yourself: self, who could possibly want more mercury, lead, and arsenic in our air and water? Well, the coal industry, that's who. And their lackeys in Congress who claim every environmental regulation is a "job-killing" burden, that's also who. How many times must I tell these pimps! Sound environmental regulations actually create jobs for the engineers and construction workers who have to refit plants to meet new regulations. And those regulations cut health care costs, too, for the people who ingest less poison from their air and water. Sound environmental regulations only "harm" the ability of energy CEOs to gild their plumbing. And an individual's "right" to gilded plumbing doesn't supersede the people's right to clean air and water. End of story.

Station to station.

Color of Change also helps you tell your Congressfolk to support H.R. 1124, the Fairness in Taxation Act, which would raise taxes on millionaire income from 35% to 45%. No, such a tax hike wouldn't affect small businesses -- ABC tried to tell us it would, but even they conceded that letting the Bush tax cuts expire on the top two brackets (which would have raised the top rate from 35% to 39.6%) would have affected two percent of small businesses. And no, such a tax hike wouldn't "kill jobs" -- actually, such a tax hike would more likely help create jobs, since rich folks would rather put their money back into their business (which makes said money an expense) rather than take it themselves (which makes it income). And no, the "47% of people who don't pay any federal taxes" at the low end of the economic spectrum don't need to pay more -- not just because they do pay federal taxes (they pay payroll taxes, in addition to all the state and local and sales taxes they pay) but because they don't make enough money to begin with and they're the ones who need a better shot at a better life. Rich folks don't need us giving them more shots.

Meanwhile, the Pennsylvania Senate passed HB 377, which would essentially gut any state government effort to make buildings more energy-efficient, so the Sierra Club helps you ask Gov. Corbett to veto HB 377. Given what I said about Mr. Corbett yesterday, you probably know that I have as low an opinion of him as I do of Messrs. Walker, Kasich, Snyder, and Christie, but our duty remains our duty. More to the point, so does his -- if the legislature is trampling on the people's will, which it does by exclusively doing the will of building industry CEOs, the Governor has the moral duty to protect the people's will by vetoing the bill. I don't know if it'll do any good to tell that to Mr. Corbett, though I will anyway, or to tell him that stronger energy efficiency standards for buildings would actually create jobs for the engineers and construction workers who will make a building cost less to heat and cool, though I'll tell him that, too. But rigging the process so that the building industry essentially has veto power over whatever the government might do on behalf of its owners, the people of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania? Er, that's a hell of a thing to run a re-election campaign on.

Speaking of Pennsylvania politics, I'm not going to oppose HB 40/SB 273 (that's two links), which would expand the so-called Castle Doctrine (i.e., "your home is your castle") in re self-defense via violent weaponry. I fervently believe that guns don't kill people, but corporations and bad governments do, so I remain intensely skeptical of any gun control legislation that crosses my filters, and I find a lot of what I'm hearing about these bills is just paranoid. The bills would not "allow people to shoot first and ask questions later" -- you could only "shoot first" if you already know the answer to said "questions," and, presumably, can prove that in a court of law. The bills wouldn't "change the standards of self-defense so deadly force becomes the go-to option even outside of the home, and even when walking away would be perfectly safe" -- the bill explicitly says the opposite in its revision of Title 18, Section 505(b)(2)(ii). And the bills would "(give) a shooter civil immunity even if they kill or injure an innocent bystander," but they wouldn't give criminal immunity, and the shooter would still have to meet the "reasonable belief" standard described earlier in the bill. For all this, I can see former Attorney General Mr. Corbett vetoing the bill, to prove his "independence," and that would be a shame, in part because he wouldn't prove his independence.

The circle is small.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) apparently thinks that a severance tax on Marcellus Shale gas drilling is "un-American." Perhaps not surprisingly, a majority of Pennsylvanians support said tax. Isn't that how it always is these days -- politicians tell us that the will of the people is "un-American"? The will of their corporate paymasters is never "un-American," to them, though it often opposes the will of the people whom these politicians nominally serve. Whatever. I don't put up with being called "un-American," and neither should you. Keystone Progress provides a contact tool demanding an apology, but I don't do apologies -- a lot of people say they're sorry these days and all they mean is they don't want to be in trouble or they don't want their words to have the consequences they're supposed to have. Better to call Mr. Corbett's office at 717.787.2500 and tell him that you despise having your ideas called "un-American" and that you'll fight a hundred times harder for your will every time he spews forth such filth.

Meanwhile, the EPA mulls keeping methyl iodide off our food; methyl iodide keeps weeds and bacteria and insects away from strawberry plants, but what else does it do? It gives rats and mice cancer, that's what! The EPA approved methyl iodide as a soil fumigant just three years ago under Bush lackey Stephen Johnson -- who obviously knew better than at least five Nobel laureates in science, because, you know, he worked for Mr. Bush -- and given that lab workers can only handle a little of it at a time due to its toxicity, and that both Washington state and New York state have banned its use in agriculture, and that both OSHA and the CDC list methyl iodide as a "potential occupational carcinogen," it's easy to see why a new EPA, one not entirely beholden to corporate interests, might come to reconsider that approval. And praise Jesus that they have! CREDO helps you tell the EPA to keep methyl iodide off our food.

Finally, Care2 helps you oppose oil drilling in the Chesapeake Bay. The Chesapeake Bay ain't doing too well anyway, thanks in part to overfishing and dumping of agricultural waste, and now the House of Representatives wants to drill for oil there? And not build more fuel-efficient high-speed trains? And not mandate better fuel efficiency in automobile engines? When the oil you could recover from the Chesapeake area would only meet U.S. energy needs for one day? It's like they're trying to screw everything up! Or, more precisely, they're trying to funnel taxpayer money to their cronies in the oil industry, who, as we know, really could use the money, even after they jack up gas to five dollars a gallon this summer. There are other solutions, of course -- more electric and hybrid cars, and a major solar-power build to power them. If only the American people had had the foresight to elect a President with vastly increased majorities in his party and a mandate to change the way things get done in Washington! Oh, wait.

Pale shelter.

You paid your fair share of taxes yesterday, but a lot of rich folks didn't pay theirs; hence the introduction of H.R. 1124, which would raise income taxes on millionaire income. Millionaire income gets taxed at 35%, currently, but H.R. 1124 would raise that rate to 45%, with one percentage point added at the $10,000,000, $20,000,000, $100,000,000, and $1 billion levels. H.R. 1124 would also treat capital gains and dividend income as, you know, income, and not as some special class of money that has to treated more gingerly so that our Financial Overlords don't crash the economy again. Read H.R. 1124 on thomas.loc.gov and you'll see that the lower income tax rates remain low, so it's not even as though millionaires and billionaires will face higher taxes on all their income, just the income over $1 million. I keep repeating this point only because the "liberal" media keeps getting it wrong. How can that keep happening? True Majority helps you support H.R. 1124. Keep in mind that a lot of us are out in the streets protesting the tax cheating of higher-income earners, including corporations; check out US Uncut's photo gallery to see what your fellow-citizens are doing so that our children and our children's children might have a better shot at a better life.

Speaking of corporate income taxes, I've got a slew of close-the-loopholes action alerts for you. USPIRG helps you tell Congress to close offshore tax havens, Keystone Progress helps you tell Congress not to cut programs when other revenue-raising options remain viable, and Public Citizen helps you tell Congress to end corporate subsidies and start funding the agencies that protect people from corporations a bit more vigorously. G.E., Exxon Mobil, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Boeing -- these are just some of the big corporations that paid no income taxes in 2010. (Chevron did slightly better -- it paid an effective tax rate of 1% on its profits.) Worse, small businesses who don't have 100-person tax avoidance departments have to compete with the large corporations who do. And yet idiots like Sen. Johnson (R-WI) insist that the real problem is that the corporate tax rate is too high. Jesus Mary and Joseph how can the corporate tax rate be too high if hardly anyone is paying it?

Finally, NETWORK, the national Catholic social justice lobby (the phrase that makes Glenn Beck shiver!) helps you oppose the Colombia Free Trade Agreement. If we know Colombia for anything they've done over the past few years, it's shooting trade union activists. Sounds like a great trading partner! You might be hopeful because you remember that Senator Obama opposed the Colombia agreement unless human rights conditions improved there. They haven't, but President Obama still plans to submit the Colombia agreement to Congress. I should just insert "Bush's Third Term" hashmarks whenever I talk about Barack Obama. I remain hopeful that, even though the Republican Party is now infested with teabaggers who might best be described as "immature" and who might worst be described as "corporate Quislings," we can reach enough of them, and change enough of them, to thwart the passage of yet another "free" trade "deal." I mean, Republicans can't be eager to help Mr. Obama accomplish something, even though it's something they'd help a Republican President accomplish. Right? In any case, best to exert our will until we accomplish the desired result.

I send a message.

"Media focus on tiny Tea Party rally, ignore antiwar march," reads the subheader on FAIR's latest action alert. I was just saying to one of my US Uncut cohorts the other day that we'd get more "liberal" media attention if we wore tri-cornered hats and, you know, were right-wingers. But when Republican politicians start joking that Tea Party rallies draw more reporters than activists, you know there's a problem. And of course we understand the problem -- the "liberal" media are either corporations or are owned by corporations, and those corporations benefit from our three wars and from the Tea Party's slash-and-burn-the-budget-and-oh-yeah-we're-still-social-reactionaries-too agenda, so why would the media cover what ordinary Americans are actually doing? Even when antiwar protestors go out of their way to link wars and budget cuts (thus depriving the "liberal" media of the excuse that the Tea Party rallies are more "relevant" to the budget cuts they'd rather cover than wars anyway)? Still, we should expect, and demand, more from the "liberal" media, and you can do so at the link above.

Meanwhile, closer to home, the reactionary Pennsylvania state legislature still aims to ram through SB 1, which would make massive cuts to public education (which will, as many observers point out, raise property taxes throughout the state) and in addition create a school voucher program (which would deplete public education funding even further). My objections to voucher-based ed are legion -- roll call! Doesn't guarantee admission to a private school! Doesn't guarantee admission to a non-sectarian private school! Depletes money from public schools! Doesn't guarantee a better education! -- but I'm surprised to learn that Article III, Section 15 of the Pennsylvania state Constitution states that "(n)o money raised for the support of the public schools of the Commonwealth shall be appropriated or used for the support of any sectarian school." The reactionaries think they've gotten around that, no doubt, by stressing that the money could be used for non-sectarian private schools, but any reasonable judge will reject that argument. In the meantime, Keystone Progress helps you oppose SB 1.

I can't stand it.

The House votes on Paul Ryan's Budget of Evil today; USPIRG helps you email your Reps that they should vote against it. Remember that Wall Street reform bill last year, the one that wasn't quite as disappointing as all the others? Well, Mr. Ryan's budget would defund a lot of the good things in it. And that ban on insurance companies denying you because of pre-existing conditions? Well, that'll be gone, too. And the Ryan budget does all this in addition to, you know, destroying Medicare, and slashing taxes on the rich. I think phoning your Rep is a good idea, too, even if you've just emailed your Rep; the Coalition for Human Needs provides a fairly comprehensive resource page about the Ryan budget, and if you're not using the tools in the upper left-hand corner of this page to find your Rep's phone number, the Capitol switchboard number is 1.888.245.0215. Using words like "disgusting" to describe the Ryan budget would not be untoward of you. I'll post the roll call vote as soon as it's up, so we can start working on defeating anyone who voted for it. I'm not kidding about that -- voting to destroy Medicare should be a career-ending moment for any politician.

Meanwhile, it's tax day today (though, actually, you have until Monday to finish your return), and Our Fiscal Security reminds us of a few choice facts -- namely, that income and payroll taxes now comprise over 80 percent of federal tax revenues, whereas in 1955 they accounted for only 58%. How could that be? Well, turns out that corporate taxes accounted for 27% of federal tax revenues in 1955, and what's that number now? Nine percent. That's right, a number so small that modern style manuals do not compel me to put it in numerical form! On that note, US Uncut, the already-bigger-than-the-Tea-Party movement that does not enjoy large amounts of Americans for Prosperity money, will host a gaggle of tax-the-corporation events over the next few days; you can find one near you by visiting this page. One of these events will be in Philadelphia, protesting Verizon's amazing ability to avoid paying taxes. The fun begins at noon; I hope you can make that, or one of the many others.

UPDATE. The Paul Ryan budget of evil passed, 235-193. Dave Reichert of Washington did not vote, while only four other Republicans voted against it: David McKinley of West Virginia, Denny Rehberg of Montana (who will run against Jon Tester in the 2012 Montana Senate race), Walter Jones of North Carolina, and Ron Paul of Texas. The latter two are fairly reliable contrarians, but they're not at all politically moderate -- I'm a bit baffled by their votes, frankly. Nonetheless, 235 Republicans should have just ended their careers.

Under a pale light.

First, we take on H. Con. Res. 34, the Ryan budget. You know, the one that gets rid of Medicare in a few years and cuts taxes for the rich? Yeah, that's some way to fight the deficit. Anyway, NETWORK, the national Catholic social justice lobby (do the words "Catholic social justice" give Glenn Beck a chill every time I put them together? I sure hope so), helps you oppose this monstrosity. But we're not just about saying no -- we're also about solutions. Thus, Wealth for the Common Good helps you support H.R. 1124, the Fairness in Taxation Act, which would end the Bush-tax-cuts-for-the-rich, plus impose new tax rates between 45% and 49% on income over $1 million. Now that would cut the deficit! Of course, I'd prefer the Robert Reich tax plan, but H.R. 1124 is a good start -- especially since the bill would also treat capital gains and dividend income at the millionaire levels as, you know, income. Which is, you know, what it is. Even President Reagan agreed with that.

Oh, but Mr. Obama is also our target today, since he (for whatever reason, possibly including "because he's evil") accedes to the Republican fiction that deficits must be cut at any cost to ordinary people. True Majority notes that deficit chickenhawks have no apparent stomach to go after the vast increase in military spending over the years (or after any of the waste and fraud therein), so they help you tell the President and Congress not to spend $1 more on the military. Seriously, we can still destroy the world 200 times over. Our military superiority is so vast that our enemies resort to relatively low-tech ways (roadside car bombs, blowing up nightclubs, stealing planes to fly into buildings) of making us destroy ourselves from within. Also, CREDO helps you tell Mr. Obama to take Medicare cuts off the table. CREDO also helps you tell Mr. Obama to "stop caving to Republican hostage-takers." Oh, if only the American people had elected him in 2008 by a landslide majority, with significantly-increased majorities in both Houses of Congress -- maybe then he would feel sufficiently empowered to stand up to Republicans! Oh, wait.

Finally, despite massive public outcry, despite a veto threat from the President himself, the House went ahead and passed legislation that permits airline and railroad corporations to count non-voters as "no" votes in unionizing elections. So American Rights at Work helps you write a letter to the editor decrying this disgusting state of affairs. The very same Republicans who lied out their behinds in claiming that the Employee Free Choice Act would "deny workers the right to a secret ballot" have no problem counting abstentions as "no" votes in a union election, and in no other elections. Like, say, their own elections -- if abstentions counted as "no" votes during their own Congressional re-election campaigns, then almost none of them would ever get re-elected. But rules aren't for Republicans; rules are for everyone else. I have faith that their Maker will inform them differently upon entry to the pearly gates, but in the meantime, we've got to change the world they've made.

Limbo.

Ai Weiwei is perhaps China's most famous artist, and he's been a pretty harsh critic of the Chinese government. And for good reason! China's government is both totalitarian and corporatist, the worst of both worlds. And, true to their nature, they arrested Ai at the Beijing Airport ten days ago, also raiding his studio and seizing computers and papers. No one knows where Ai is right now, and the state has charged Ai with "economic crimes." Don't laugh: American corporations, with all their recent assertions of their "rights" as "persons" in courtrooms across America, aim to make all of us guilty of "economic crimes," too. But the Chinese government is well past due for some serious shame, and in this matter they may be susceptible to a shaming campaign -- they're trying to raise their arts profile, and putting an artist in jail on trumped-up charges is not a widely-accepted way of raising said profile. Change.org, of course, provides the petition.

Yesterday was Equal Pay Day, and (to my surprise) the Paycheck Fairness Act has, apparently, been re-introduced in both Houses of Congress. I say "to my surprise," of course, because it didn't pass the last Congress by 41 filibustering Republican Senators (that's right, even the New England "moderates" did their party's bidding), and there are, er, more Republicans in Congress now. Of course, it shouldn't matter which party our Reps and Senators are in; they're supposed to do our will. And I'm having trouble imagining the American people demanding that our government leave open loopholes in the Equal Pay Act, or fail to prevent retaliation against folks who disclose their salaries to their coworkers. Of course a few Americans really do oppose help for folks they perceive as "other people," but they don't get to run things. Not in my America, at least! The National Women's Law Center provides the contact tool.

Finally, OMB Watch points us to an Economic Policy Institute report which tells us that (are you sitting down?) regulations don't "kill" jobs. I know, I know, I've been saying this for, like, forever, but I've just been appealing to your common sense. The report generally finds that government regulations have no effect on hiring, and that environmental regulations actually have a positive effect on hiring. But the most telling data point, for me, is this one: "Since 2007, the government has published information on how many ‘extended mass job layoffs’ employers attribute to government regulations/intervention...Over this period, only a tiny fraction of such job layoffs (about 0.3% of the 1.5 million of these layoffs each year) were attributed by employers to government regulations/intervention.” And, er, that's the number employers are giving, so it could be an exaggeration -- or it could indicate the wide gap between what employers think and what their nominal advocacy groups think. I'm an optimist, so I'd like to believe it's the latter.

I walk along darkened corridors.

As I said yesterday, Mr. Obama plans to speak at length about cutting the deficit, during which he'll purportedly take a "look at Medicare and Medicaid" and start a "discussion" about Social Security. Here's the "discussion" we're going to have with Barack Obama: no cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security, period. And for that he'll call us "sanctimonious purists" (you thought I'd forgotten that?), but we're right and he's wrong. Try jacking up taxes on rich folks, Mr. Obama, or letting Medicare friggin' negotiate with drug corporations for better prices, before suggesting that the poor have to bear yet more of the burden of the economy the rich have so wantonly destroyed. But don't let your Reps off the hook, either, because they're going to vote on Mr. Ryan's "courageous" budget this week, the one that destroys Medicare and dumps health care costs on the backs of seniors, the one that gives away so much in tax cuts to the rich and to corporations that it doesn't actually reduce the deficit very much. In case you were wondering, our leaders disgust me. You can use the Capitol Switchboard's number, 1.888.245.0215, or you can use the tools in the upper left-hand corner of this page to find contact info for your Rep. Also, RESULTS can help you write a letter to the editor.

Meanwhile, Bush's Third Term continues apace, as alleged Wikileaks whistleblower Pfc. Bradley Manning now cannot even receive visits from high government officials. This is on top of all the ridiculous treatment he's already received -- 9 months of solitary confinement, a frivolous "Prevention of Injury" order, no exercise other than walking around his cell, being forced to strip nude at night -- and, as with all that, the military's breaking its own rules by refusing visits from personages like Rep. Kucinich of the House Oversight Committee or the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, since those rules pointedly define "official government business" as being "either on behalf of the prisoner or in the interest of justice," and not, you may notice, as "running errands for the Executive branch." I mean, last I looked, the U.S. government's official business is working on behalf of its owners, the people. So firedoglake's action page helps you tell Pentagon leadership to permit Mr. Manning to have visitors. I would think a strong, vibrant democracy can handle the truth without having to detain and torture folks. I'm not going to play a game of "find the false premise" in that sentence just yet.

Dark as a dungeon.

As you may have heard, Republicans have released a draft of their next budget (after the continuing resolution runs out later this year), and it's profoundly depressing. So American Rights at Work helps you oppose it. There's really no talking to people who think (or, more precisely, "think") that tax cuts always create jobs and handouts for big corporations always create jobs, when a few seconds' thought would suggest that tax cuts always raise deficits and handouts for big corporations go right into CEO's pockets. I suppose there's a silver lining: Republicans really think gutting Medicare will gain them votaries. But behind every silver lining there's a dark cloud, and Mr. Obama plans to introduce his own deficit-cutting plan this week, because, you know, since Republicans talk about the deficit, he can't talk about anything else, either. That means we, the people, the actual owners of government, simply have to talk louder than they do.

Meanwhile, the House also passed a "resolution of disapproval" forbidding the FCC from regulating network neutrality, even in the weak manner it's chosen over the past year. We fought against the FCC's so-called "net neutrality" regulations last year because they didn't do enough, but now the House has gone one step further and decided that corporations, not you, should dictate everything you see and do on the internet. The big corporations hate your freedom. There is no other way to put it. They hate your freedom, because it "interferes" with their freedom to make as much money as possible. Well, there are more important rights than making enough money to gild your plumbing. Your First Amendment right to freedom of association -- with which the big telecoms most assuredly will interfere, once they get their tiers-of-service and "synergy" partnerships -- is just one of those rights. So Free Press helps you tell the Senate to reject the House's resolution of disapproval.

Finally, closer to home, Pennsylvania HB 377 would roll back energy efficiency standards in large buildings. Because, you know, the economy's bad, and that means nothing so much as that buildings need to be leakier and less well-insulated! It's not like increased efficiency standards create construction jobs or anything. And it's certainly not like increased efficiency standards cut down on a building's utility bills or anything. HB 377 has of course already sailed through Pennsylvania's House of Reactionaries, and the Senate Appropriations Committee will consider it today. So Penn Environment helps you tell your state Senator to oppose HB 377. It'd be nice if a few Democrats would get up and call bills like HB 377 "job-killing" bills, since that's what they actually are. Sadly, Democrats all over America have abandoned you. The good news is, you're not alone: the rest of the American people are in the same boat as you. And we outnumber the politicians, so we can bring the politicians to heel.

Light posting notice.

I've been rather ill these past few days -- and with so much happening, no less! -- so I haven't posted. As I recover, I expect I'll post more.

In the meantime, remember to act as if Republicans want to take the food out of your mouth, and Democrats want to help them without looking so much like they're helping them.

Beat the clock.

Monday, April 4, will be the 33rd anniversary of the assassination of Dr. King after marching with Memphis sanitation workers, and the AFSCME plans rallies nationwide; you can find one near you here. You may have heard that we working folks are under an unusual amount of pressure these days, both from corporations that won't hire us and the Republicans that want to take away our right to a decent life. Of course both corporations and Republicans are quite unpopular right now, but let's not get complacent, because they still have a lot of money on their side. And don't believe any "liberal" media hype that the unions are co-opting Dr. King's legacy. This is the same "liberal" media that started hating on Dr. King the minute he started preaching about the struggles of American workers.

In a related development, Public Citizen gives us yet more reasons to oppose Mr. Obama's "free" trade deal with South Korea. South Korea, you see, had their own economic armageddon in 1997, and what did they do about it? They started using "capital controls" -- like taxes on transactions and limits on currency exchanges and international transactions -- that slowed down trading and reduced chaos. Hard to believe, Harry, but the South Korea "free" trade agreement would actually prevent its signatories from doing that -- and it'd make the countries' taxpayers pay corporations "compensation" if governments even try to rein in all that chaos. The good news? Americans across the ideological spectrum oppose the deal. The bad news? Democratic and Republican politicians don't listen to Americans anymore. So we just speak out until they have no choice but to listen.