Thieves in the Temple.

ProPublica takes us to Victory Drive, just outside of Fort Benning, GA -- where over half a dozen high-interest lenders have set up shop, exploiting loopholes in the Military Lending Act to trap our soldiers in runaway debt. One commenter insists that soldiers (despite risking losing their security clearances if they disclose their debt to their superiors) have more than enough tools to avoid falling into title-loan traps and the like -- but that doesn't excuse the behavior of the corporations exploiting the loopholes. Why do I have to keep explaining that?

In a peripherally-related story, a Veterans Administration epidemiologist claims that the VA systematically downplays evidence of Gulf War Illness. Read the whole thing; it's a sad tale, and it's not enough to say maybe more funding would induce the VA to do more -- we also need more folks in government who are less corrupt, as buttressed by the millions of dollars in bonuses (doesn't anyone in government or business know the meaning of the word "bonus"?) earned by high-ranking VA officials.

Dick Cheney calls the Benghazi incident "one of the worst incidences (sic), frankly, that I can recall in my career." He's got balls, I suppose -- he doesn't appear to recall any of the 13 attacks on American diplomatic posts, killing 98, occurring on his watch -- but three years ago he'd have said this on CNN, not Hannity. I guess that's progress.

Greg Sargent at the Washington Post suspects that the nexus of scandal currently plaguing the Obama Administration might actually save us from Social Security cuts and Medicare cuts. And why not give Mr. Obama some credit for that? It'd only be fair, since he lived through the Clinton years just like the rest of us, and since I often blame him for calculating his way out of apparent victory.

Greg Kaufmann at The Nation's blog lists "Twelve Things You Can Do to Fight Poverty Now." We're doing some of them already! Though I'm a little ashamed that I didn't think to demand more money for food stamps, versus merely opposing food stamp cuts. I don't always negotiate with the maximum amount of imagination. I'll work on it.

Finally, Gar Alperovitz reminds us (in an excerpt from his new book, What Then Must We Do?) that publicly-owned resources -- energy utilities, broadband providers, state pensions, and the like -- already exist all over America, even in the South, and work well on behalf of their owners, the people. Warning to the foolish: Mr. Alperovitz deploys the word "socialism" as though it's a word with meaning and utility, and not as if it's a club best used to beat liberals.

Senate drama king Jim Inhofe (R-OK) says the Benghazi controversy could get people starting impeachment talk. Nobody in Congress save Dennis Kucinich mooted impeaching Mr. Obama for putting troops in Libya without Congressional authorization. But if Republicans want to lose the House and fail to recapture the Senate in advance of a 2016 Presidential election in which they'll have to defend 24 more Senate seats, who am I to stop them?

This sucks: Medicare's Part D drug prescription plan does almost zero monitoring of the doctors prescribing the drugs. Of course, if Medicare did such monitoring, an army of teabaggers would likely call it fascism -- and, indeed, not interfering with doctors seems a mantra of the 2004 law, even if those doctors are swamping their patients in antipsychotics.

Massive immigration overhaul being mooted in Senate contains mandate for massive "photo tool" database, which would essentially be a "national ID system without the card." I bet it doesn't work any better than E-Verify, which makes lots of mistakes, especially in re Hispanic names, and I bet it also becomes a massive target for identity theft.

North Carolina Senate Finance Committee advances bill repealing the state's renewable energy standard, even though a majority of Finance members say they voted against the bill. They want Voter ID laws in North Carolina and their legislators can't even count votes in a Senate committee meeting when there won't be more than 35 folks voting? Or is that just what they want us to think?

Town of Dryden, NY, population 14,500, prevails over gas drillers in lawsuit over its 2011 fracking ban. Over 50 New York towns have banned fracking, while another 50-plus have declared moratoria. Small government at work! (Though your typical Republican corporatist might not think so.)

Finally, scientists think Jupiter's moon Europa might have some of the basic conditions for life. Scientists long knew Europa was covered in water, but have begun to garner evidence via telescope that Europa also has salt and organic compounds, which means Europa might have life in its waters, albeit life adapted to very, very cold conditions. They'll need to fly rather closer to the moon to be sure. Maybe we'll find out more before we're all dead.

The BBC's Jane Wakefield wonders if the next industrial revolution will be a "makers" revolution. Don't anyone go thinking this is about Ayn Rand -- it's just about folks being able to use 3-D printers, along with crowdsourcing and internet research, to be able to manufacture, at least on a small scale, things that could change how we view the world. Could be exciting, and I'm pleased that big corporations are pooping themselves at the thought, but call me when 3-D printers are able to make washable underwear or oven-safe plates.

Not that you didn't already suspect this, but a number of reputable sources find our Ongoing Economic Armageddon at least partly behind increases in suicide rates for Americans aged 35 to 64. I don't know that putting banksters in jail would lower the rate all that much, not that we shouldn't do that for other reasons. (The question of why baby boomers have a higher suicide rate generally is worth pursuing separately. I won't admit because they're spoiled as an answer.)

Reuters informs us that one reason garment industry tycoons in Bangladesh, the world's number two garment exporter, can treat their workers so badly is that these tycoons make up about ten percent of that nation's Parliament. One activist suggests that well over half of Parliament has some kind of tie to the garment industry. Remember all that bulldada last year about how we should have a President with "business experience"? Well, this is kinda the dark side of that.

Harold Meyerson (writing at The American Prospect) notes that one provision of the Affordable Care Act -- making employers of more than 50 pay for health insurance for any employee working 30 hours or more per week -- has already induced some employers (which include state and local governments) to cut their workers' hours to around 29 per week. There'll be a safety net of sorts (state or federal health care exchanges) for those folks, but still, lost hours means lost money. We should have a single-payer health care system to get around this problem, maybe? (Mr. Meyerson gets there, of course, noting that it's rather "arbitrary" to have a system where you almost have to get health care through your job.)

Ohio Tea Party leaders say they're so disgusted with Republicans that they might start fielding candidates of their own. "It remains uncertain," the Dispatch tells us, "just how much the Ohio GOP and its candidates could be hurt by an insurrection because it is difficult to assess the true strength of tea party groups." Well, of course it's "difficult to assess" the strength of groups called into being by corporate money and made up largely of folks who can barely articulate a coherent thought.

Finally, dig the pissing match Catholic League President Bill Donohue starts on Larry King Live over whether the boys molested by Catholic priests were "prepubescent" or not. Remember, gang: no ground is too small to claim, and no pitched battle too petty to fight, when you're always wrong about everything. And those kids were too young to consent to sex, regardless of what exact point oh, forget it, it's Bill Donohue.

FAIR finds the "liberal" media once again rushing to judgment in re whether Syria has used chemical weapons. Long story short: there's much less proof than the "liberal" media would want you to believe. Absolutely priceless moments: New York Times hack Bill Keller saying "getting Syria right starts with getting over Iraq" and ABC news hack Cokie Roberts suggesting that public unwillingness to get embroiled in another quagmire is "a huge problem."

Wisconsin legislature mulls a bill, AB 110, that would attempt to curtail alleged food-stamp spending on junk food -- but would also would curtail food-stamp spending on organic milk, organic eggs, and gluten-free bread, among other actually healthy foods. You're tempted to say the legislature really doesn't understand what they're doing, but they carved out exemptions for beef and pork, just not for the dairy products for which Wisconsin is famous. They really have taken George W. Bush's lessons to heart in Wisconsin.

Dave Johnson describes "Seven Ways the Sequester Is Actually Increasing Government Spending." This isn't one of those counterintuitive cut-the-top-tax-rate-and-you'll-raise-revenue arguments -- we all know in our bones that the essential spending you cut now often costs you later. Highlights, such as they are: cutting IRS appropriations cuts revenue and thus increases the deficit; cutting Meals-on-Wheels puts more seniors in nursing homes and thus increases Medicare spending; even arbitrary defense cuts results in future lawsuits, thus settlements, thus increased spending.

Don't look now, but Robert J. Samuelson of the Washington Post thinks that "employers lack confidence, not skilled labor." Mr. Samuelson is one of the Post's biggest corporatists, a long-time apologist for Medicare and Social Security "reform," but if he tells you that the number of unemployed folk "dwarf(s)" the number of job vacancies, and that long-term unemployed get shafted worse than anyone else regardless of their skills, then the we-can't-find-the-right-people shtick must be one of the worst shticks ever.

Finally, NPR's David Carr finds that media executives tend to outmake even financial sector executives, at least at the high end. Did you need even more proof that the media can't speak truth to power because they are power? Well, there it is.

Banks may still be foreclosing everywhere they can, but at least they can't hide from their shareholders -- even when they decide to have their meetings not in San Francisco or Minneapolis but Boise or Salt Lake City. But some shareholder resolutions would be nice -- they wouldn't even have to win to get Wells Fargo (2012 profits: $19 billion) to start doing the right thing.

In a related note, the Wall Street Journal has permitted this Paul Farrell column entitled "Capitalism Is Killing Our Morals, Our Future" on its Marketwatch website. I sure would love to read something like that on its daily broadsheet! Anyway, it's not exactly what you'd expect -- the main point is that when everything is for sale, when parties to a contract have a "nonjudgmental" attitude toward what's being sold, then inequality and corruption thrive.

Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) says she voted against the Paycheck Fairness Act because "there were (sic) already existing laws that need to be enforced," failing to note that the Paycheck Fairness Act would have provided tools for enforcement of those laws. Worse, she worried the law would have made it harder "for job creators to create jobs." She may call that chiasmus, but I just call it clumsy. And I call it reactionary to cite better law enforcement as some kind of burden, and I also call her "job creators" job destroyers. Good citizens of New Hampshire, please turn Ms. Ayotte out in 2016.

Four citizens and eight corporations file suit against our government over IRS enforcement of the Affordable Care Act. The plaintiffs say the IRS overstepped the Affordable Care Act's bounds by making tax credits for health insurance to individuals participating in the federal health insurance exchanges as well as the state exchanges (because the states have been slow to set up their own exchanges, where they're doing it at all). We could have avoided this problem by setting up a single-payer system, maybe?

The Drudge Report fell hard for a satirical Daily Currant piece describing New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg being denied a second slice of pizza at a restaurant. I guess this is why Mr. Drudge isn't America's Assignment Editor anymore, though I wonder what he'll have to do for the "liberal" media to shun him completely, as they should have done long ago. And at least he outclassed the Zero Hedge blog, whose anti-apology really has to be read to be believed.

Good news, everyone: CISPA, the House-passed bill that would have let corporations and government collaborate on infringing your privacy rights, is very likely dead in the Senate. Give yourself and your cohorts a high-five, and then beware of whatever "cybersecurity" legislation (likely several pieces of legislation) the Senate does offer up later on this year.

Mora County, New Mexico becomes the first American county to ban oil and gas extraction. Small government at work! But most of today's "conservatives" will hate it -- or mislabel it "socialism."

Study finds that promoting certain energy-efficiency appliances as "good for the environment" (versus "more efficient," for example) actually turns off conservatives to their product. Are they sure they surveyed conservatives, though? Because it sounds like they surveyed brats.

James Kwak suggests a novel approach to helping Social Security: end tax preferences for private retirement plans and use the savings (some $200 billion a year!) to shore up the Social Security Trust Fund. I'm not a fan of dedicating revenues to a particular project, but I agree that we don't need to subsidize IRAs and 401(k)s. We're doing the right thing merely by letting those options exist.

Our government wants to fine big telecoms that don't comply with wiretap orders. And give them immunity when they violate your privacy through warrantless wiretaps, or when they give up your private info to our government! Calling it "Kafkaesque" would insult Mr. Kafka, for these are piddling ironies. So "Bizarro World America" it is.

Jesse Eisinger reviews the Brown-Vitter bill aimed at preventing banks from becoming "too big to fail." He finds some things he likes and some things he doesn't like, but boy are banksters tone-deaf to what regular folks think of them. Banksters are afraid the bill would "punish" them. What does the rest of America say? We can only hope!

In a possibly related note, big corporations still resist the Dodd-Frank mandate to disclose ratios between CEO pay and lowest-paid worker pay. One spokeshack actually has the nerve to say (even before he has the nerve to say computing a ratio would be too hard) that "(w)e don’t believe the information would be material to investors." Does he think all investors are assholes?

Former GM vice chairman says higher gasoline taxes would help wean us off our addiction to oil. I respectfully disagree: promoting alternative forms of travel (like public transportation) and rethinking our relationship to our living spaces (maybe we would like them more walkable or bikeable?) would help wean us off our addiction to oil. I'm not the biggest fan of gas taxes anyway; they hit the poor harder.

Sam Pizzigati examines why it's so tough to get a handle on CEO pay, even though publicly-traded corporations must by law disclose executive pay. Long story short: too much CEO pay is stock-related, which can fluctuate wildly in value. Of course, the big story, as you no doubt already know, is that CEOs make a lot more than workers, a lot more "more" than they used to.

Rhode Island state Treasurer demands givebacks from state employees to "save" their pensions -- but continues to pay out big fees to hedge fund managers who roll the dice with those employees' money. Take a good look at that kind of corruption, if it doesn't make you sick. And remember that the thing about a pension is that it's supposed to be there for you when you retire, not that it's supposed to make a killing in the stock market.

Snopes hasn't yet determined if that parochial school fourth grade science quiz -- you know, the one you saw on Facebook -- is real or not. I wondered that myself, even after all these years of right-wingers proving all my fears about them and worse. But n.b. the response the quiz tells children to give when anyone asserts that the world is "millions or billions" of years old: "were you there?" Like that can't be turned on a kid who asserts that the Bible is "the History Book of the Universe"! Seriously, that's a big worms-not-in-can problem.

Even in North Carolina, it's hard out there for a pimp: a right-wing bill that would have repealed the state's renewable energy standard got absolutely buried in a House committee. Because, dig this, folks understood that renewable energy standards actually create jobs for the people who help get businesses up to speed. Predictably, some teabagger whose name will go unmentioned here said Republicans who voted against the measure "need to be held accountable." And I suspect they will be -- by the voters who re-elect them. One day, maybe teabaggers will be tired of being wrong about everything.

A Pew Research Center study tells us that "(t)he U.S. economy has recovered for households with net worth of $500,000 or more" but "(t)he recession continues for almost everyone else." And THAT! IS THE MOST! SURPRISING! THING! I! HAVE EVER! HEARD!

U.S. Justice Department grants immunity to big telecoms who snoop for data they'd otherwise be breaking the law to collect. What, the FISA Amendments Act wasn't giveaway enough? No Executive branch, even that belonging to "the most transparent government in history," ever gave up power willingly, and no corporation ever gave up power willingly, either. And by the way, if CISPA becomes law, all of this will be legal.

If the whole "chained CPI" debate about Social Security benefits still seems a little esoteric to you (it's almost like they want it that way!), then Robert Reich explains why it's a bad idea in a two-minute video. Meanwhile, Talking Points Memo explains why a benefit cut based on "chained CPI" would cut benefits even more than it seems, by discussing the CPI-E inflation-measuring tool, which weighs health care costs more heavily than other tools.

One good thing coming out of coverage of the bogus double-tweet that sent markets reeling the other day: the speed of computerized trading has come under fire. What hasn't come under fire, unfortunately, is that our sick, immoral, and decadent culture still treats instant-traders as regular businessfolk, instead of what they are: speculators. There is, believe it or not, more to investing than making-the-most-money-right-now -- like investing in good corporations, or using your power as a shareholder to make corporations better.

Ho hum, New York Mayor says our "interpretation" of the Constitution, and our laws, will have to change in order to keep us safe. If that's true, then the American experiment in democracy is over -- and it's not over.

The American Legislative Exchange Council's Energy, Environment, and Agriculture Task Force Director ("task force"?) bemoans how "somber" Earth Day has become. Think maybe the "somberness" has something to do with corporations being bigger and able to pollute more than ever before? Or corporations pushing climate-change denialism, just as ALEC has done? Or right-wingers screaming JOB KILLURZ!!!! at every attempt to keep our air and water clean? Or EPA regulators being called "job terrorists" on cable news shows?

Economic Policy Institute study suggests we don't actually have a "shortage" of science-technology-engineering-math graduates, but a shortage of jobs for those graduates. Corporations are absurdly powerful, care only about profits, and cut jobs so they can increase profits, so it's easy to see why they'd want us to think we just don't have enough science/math-related folks to fill jobs. And n.b. that corporations used to say they needed H1-B visas because they couldn't find enough Americans to do the job, but now they say they need them so they can "hire the best and brightest." (Really, they just want to pay workers less, and people who come from nations where the U.S. dollar has more buying power will work for less. I don't blame them, but I do blame the CEOs who've gamed the system this way.)

Finally (cue cheers from convention crowd!), British ex-drug czar said the 2008 financial services Armageddon was caused by too many bankers doing coke. Doesn't greed explain enough?

Another case study in the banality of evil: we learn, from Mother Jones, 11 "mystifying" things the Tsarnaev brothers did on their way to eternal ignominy. Highlights: they apparently tried to get money out of three different ATMs after hitting the withdrawal limit, and then let a carjacking hostage escape because they had the munchies. Their classmates said they were typical, and they were right!

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) told Fox News that trying the younger Tsarnaev in civilian court is the right thing to do. He could've delivered the line about the Constitution being "strong enough" more smoothly, but he did good. I'd been hearing rumblings from other liberals that Mr. Paul had been holding his tongue too long about this matter. And like the Prodigal Son's father, I couldn't care less.

The EPA apparently left its own public comment with the State Department about Keystone XL, and found the State Department's report wanting. You won't be surprised to learn (if you didn't know already) that the Keystone XL pipeline doesn't adequately avoid the Ogalalla Aquifer even after the Nebraska state legislature called a special session about it -- and that other pipelines in that area do avoid it. It's like our elites want bad things to happen.

Answering a question about whether America's ready for another Bush (namely Jeb) as President, George W. Bush begins his response with "That's for Jeb to figure out." Actually, no: it's for the American people to figure out. Strange, how they never see that.

Bill Clinton, campaigning for behind-in-the-polls L.A. Mayoral candidate, slams low turnout in the March Mayoral primary. What could be depressing voter turnout in L.A.? Let's see: odd-numbered election year, largely Democrat-controlled city -- and, oh yeah, politicians failing to earn votes with their good works. Strange, how they never see that.

Finally, six-term Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) announces he won't seek re-election in 2014. He'd actually drifted a little leftward under Mr. Obama, which is quite unusual among Senators. And, in an actually rather unexpected development, former Gov. Brian Schweitzer -- who recently declared himself "not senile enough" for the Senate -- now won't rule out a run for the open seat.

Number of hunger strikers at Guantánamo Bay reaches 63, or over one-third of detainees there; the military is force-feeding 15 of these and hospitalizing four others. Think maybe it might be easier to, you know, charge them with something? Or admit you f'd up and send them back to whatever remains of their lives? Not our government; it still has too many bold thinkers in it, which (especially in this case!) includes the ones who think we have to move slowly because Bush f'd so much up.

A sober reminder: three days after the Boston Marathon bombings, a suicide bomber killed 27 people in a Baghdad café. And on the day of the Boston bombings, over 30 folks died (with 200 more injured) in co-ordinated car bombings across Iraq. "Although violence has decreased in Iraq since the peak of the insurgency in 2006 and 2007," the BBC reports, "bombings are still common." This is one of those rare times you rue that British talent for understatement.

Meanwhile, closer to home, a fertilizer factory blew up in Texas on Wednesday, wounding over a hundred folks and killing over a dozen, and Democracy Now! asks if OSHA could have prevented it. Short answer: not likely, even though Mr. Bush's EPA -- Mr. Bush's EPA! -- had fined West Fertilizers in 2006 for inadequate risk management. Then we learned that West Fertilizers did not disclose to DHS, as law mandates, that they were carrying over 270 tons of ammonium nitrate on site. The reporting threshold is 400 pounds. Good thing Fox News is all over the "job terrorists" in our government.

U.S. Treasury Undersecretary for Domestic Finance says that taxpayers will never bail out a financial firm again, regardless of its size. But we also know that the FDIC thinks forcing savings account holders to convert their savings into bank shares is a wonderful response to any crises banksters will face/blunder into/create in the future, so Ms. Miller's vow isn't as comforting as it could be.

Good news from Georgia: the Georgia House of Representatives rejected a bill aiming to block cities from building their own muni-wireless networks -- meaning that cities will be able to build their own (really, their residents' own) wireless networks that could compete with whatever wireless networks the big telecoms might build. Now that Mr. Obama's not going away, bipartisan issues like media access can go back to being bipartisan, maybe? The Georgia vote is a good sign.

Arkansas State Rep. Nate Bell asks "how many Boston liberals spent the night cowering in their homes wishing they had an AR-15 with a hi-capacity magazine?" Ever heard of Nate Bell? Me neither. Now let's never speak of him again. I'm going to guess that a few Boston residents, liberal or not, spent at least a little time wishing they had the biggest gun they could imagine, but that the vast majority of them remembered that indulging in video-game fantasies isn't the same as protecting yourself from harm. And I'm still no great supporter of gun control -- if we really want to protect ourselves from harm, we need to tax the rich as hard as we used to, and use the revenue to do great works again. Then we can properly shame anyone who wants to grow up to be a sniper.

The Boston bombings were two days ago, and, just like always, some folks can't help but be stupid. The New York Post said police had detained a Saudi citizen despite citing exactly zero sources, and various right-wing Useful Idiots dutifully ran with it. Later, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) said we should delay any talk of immigration reform, given that "some of the speculation" pointed to foreigner-on-student-visa involvement. Could they maybe just shut up until they actually know stuff?

FAIR wonders how Mr. Obama's plan to cut Social Security benefits became the "middle" of the political debate. Am I so mistaken to think of "the middle" as a place where most people are, rather than some imaginary statistical median between cowardly Democrats and nihilistic Republicans?

Study finds that hospitals make more money when they screw up -- through all the extra care they have to give, of course, which private insurers generally cover. No one thinks hospitals do this on purpose, but it is a rather perverse disincentive to doing things better -- if all anyone cares about is money, that is.

If your Tea Party Uncle comes at you with that study "showing" that countries whose debt equals 90% of their GDP have worse economies, you can always counter with this. Long story short: said study excludes entire years of high-debt growth in a way that works in favor of its thesis, weighs the data it does use in a way that works in favor its thesis, and makes a big Excel error that works in favor of its thesis. I'm not kidding about that last one.

A pair of analysts, one from the left and one from the right, label Kansas's right-wing tax "reform" plan the worst in the nation. The lefty finds the plan "beneficial to high-income earners and harmful to low" and hampers state investment in education and infrastructure, while the righty pans the plan because it encourages businesses to make decisions on the basis of what tax advantages they could get, rather than what's actually good for their business. Sounds like they found an actual conservative, which is always a good thing.

Idaho becomes second state to restrict drone use by law enforcement, as at least one state Senator voices concerns about "high-tech window peeping." It shouldn't be a surprise that arguably the most conservative state in the union just restricted drone use, as conservatives have long had plenty of privacy concerns about drones, even if the "conservatives" you see on cable news don't share them.

Just in case we've been getting too misty-eyed about Rand Paul lately, he just told Howard University students that he never opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Yikes, doesn't everybody know that's bunk? And he spent twenty minutes on Rachel Maddow's show avoiding answering the same damn question, and Ms. Maddow wasn't even being mean to him. If he's going to pander, he's got to work on his skills. He sure won't learn them from his Dad.

The Obama Administration has argued that it should not have to disclose a court ruling that it's spied on Americans illegally. Or the consequences could be "exceptionally grave and serious" yadda yadda yadda. I would think the consequences of not disclosing the ruling would be rather grave -- must we always be compelled to allow our government to go on blundering?

Arkansas TV stations pull unusually blunt anti-Exxon ad after Exxon threatens legal action. (As you surely recall, an Exxon pipeline did recently take a dump all over Arkansas.) If Exxon really thinks the makers of this ad think that each-and-every Exxon employee hates children because Exxon makes money off technologies that make them sick, they're more thin-skinned than I previously thought possible. And thanks to the miracle of modern technology, you can see the ad in its entirety at the above link.

California may be segregating its prisoners based on race at at least five of its state prisons. Using a color-coding system, no less! As a response to gang-related rioting at its prisons, they say -- and certainly not because California's prisons are at about 150% of capacity!

The incomparable Alex Pareene writes about Reshma Saujani, the former hedge fund attorney now running for New York City public advocate, but who in 2010 ran against U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney in the Democratic primary with the improbable message that we should be nice to Wall Street. And who has since apparently scrubbed every reference to her pro-Wall Street stance (and career!) she can find. It ain't just Republicans who think we're completely stupid, folks. Wanted to "invite Wall Street to create jobs" -- like that's what they know how to do!

Finally, some good news: the National Organics Standards Board has barred the use of the antibiotic oxytetracycline in organic apples and pears, a battle we earlier described here. Some apple and pear growers contend that there just aren't any better ways of fighting fire blight, though hiring more workers to prune trees more carefully and planting more resistant varieties are, actually, two good ways. Eagerly awaiting the first idiot to tell me that you'll be happy when apple prices go up, hippie -- since, as we know, all prices always depend on one single factor!

Surprise, surprise: that big bankster "settlement" Mr. Obama was so hot to get over with will net most wronged homeowners a mere $500. Where do you pay a month's rent with that, exactly, besides, say, Thailand, where most wronged homeowners have no urge to relocate? And much as I like Sen. Warren's questioning of our government regulators, I'm going to notice if it doesn't get us any results.

The Organic Consumers Association explains why GMO labeling won't actually increase costs or prices. Even if you didn't know anything about affidavits, you probably already suspected that, given that big ag corporations don't employ a thousand monks with quill pens to make different food labels for every state. Still, it's always nice to have more arrows in the quill.

Behold, from the pen of Time's Joe Klein, the stupidest thing I've read in a long time: "There are those on the left who will object that the deficit issue is overblown and not even a priority among voters. They are right. But we have reached the point where some sort of deal is necessary to restore the public's, the business community's and the world's faith that the U.S. government can, occasionally, take significant action. I predict--tepidly, with no great confidence--that the Congress will finally decide it is time to act." So we're right that Americans don't care as much about the deficit as the politicians pretend to do, but we should still let the politicians do terrible things in the name of "deficit reduction" so the world will be "reassured" that Congress can still "do something"? How about Congress "reassuring" the world by, you know, actually doing something worth doing? That never occurs to professional cynics, who outnumber normal people by about a million to one in the "liberal" media.

Hey, weren't we just talking about prison privatization in Ohio? A 2012 audit of the now privately-owned Lake Erie Correctional Institute found multiple violations of state standards, including overcrowding, low food quality, and lousy medical care. Plus, you know, crap paperwork, which should be the easy part. If Geraldo Rivera were young today, he'd no doubt be showing us film of inmates sleeping on the floor and picking at scabs. Unfortunately, Geraldo Rivera is old and fat today, and his inheritors too post-modern to care.

The continuing budget resolution Mr. Obama signed late last month contains a provision actually forbidding the U.S. Post Office from cutting back on Saturday deliveries. Which doesn't save the USPS from its crippling pension pre-payment mandate, of course, but absolves Congress from doing anything about it, since they'll have saved Saturday delivery at least until no one's looking, plus it makes the USPS's problems worse, which means they can cut an even worse deal than the crap deal Joe Lieberman put together last year. That did start out as good news, really it did.

The Ohio ACLU finds folks who can't pay their fines routinely get jail time in Ohio -- without the legal system bothering to find out whether they can pay what they owe. It's not exactly The Return of the Debtor's Prison, but it is against the law, per a 1983 U.S. Supreme Court decision that I hope John Roberts has no desire to revisit. It helps to know that jailing folks, instead of suing in civil court to recover what they owe, actually costs taxpayers money -- but that makes you wonder who actually benefits. Hey, hasn't Ohio been privatizing state prisons lately?

The Daily Beast summarized it so you don't have to read it: "Liberals are howling ‘sellout’ over Social Security reform, and Republicans are readying their reflexive ‘tax and spend liberal’ attacks. That’s how you know Obama’s budget is a good one, says John Avlon." Not exactly: liberal "howls" about "reform" are fact-based, whereas Republican "attacks" are phantasms. It always helps to know why both sides are angry, "liberal" media, before praising a "center" that doesn't resemble what very many Americans want. Our opinions do matter, right?

Speaking of which: the Center for Effective Government compares five federal budget proposals -- the Back to Work budget, the Murray budget, the Obama budget, the Ryan budget, and (for laughs, I mean fairness) the Republican Study Committee budget -- to American spending priorities as discovered in polling. Interesting findings: generally, the Republican budgets don't do what the American people want our federal budget to do, and the Ryan budget actually outclasses the Obama budget on Social Security, though the Obama budget outclasses the Ryan budget on Medicare.

Finally, the indefatigable Westboro Baptist Church threatened to picket film critic Roger Ebert's funeral on Monday, apparently because Mr. Ebert twice drily mocked them on twitter -- then didn't show. When I heard they were planning to picket, I thought, does Jesus want those who love Him to be so damn thin-skinned? When I heard they didn't show, I thought, does Jesus want those who love Him to be such loud-mouthed cowards? Or such naked publicity hounds?

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is "encouraged" by the Obama budget; specifically cites Social Security and Medicare cuts as signs of "leadership." I missed the part where all 300 million Americans are named Lindsey Graham.

Democrats recruit "non-ideological" "problem-solvers" for critical House races -- so they can all be turned out by extremely ideological problem-creators a few years later, just like they were in 2010. The definition of insanity, et cetera.

President Obama will give back 5% of his salary to the Treasury, mirroring the 5% cuts in the sequester. That move should have come a lot earlier. Even Chuck Hagel beat him to it by a day.

Mr. Obama apologizes for calling California Attorney General Kamala Harris the "best-looking" AG in the country. I heard more about this on the news this past week than a lot of more important things. It's almost like that's the idea -- no, his idea, too.

At last, a Washington Post opinion piece that doesn't suck! Katrina vanden Heuvel not only describes actual bipartisanship between conservatives and liberals in opposing untrammeled corporate power, she finds actual small business groups tired of being used like a wet dishrag as the Republican excuse for more-tax-cuts-for-the-rich. We deserve an inspiring read from the "liberal" media every once in a while, don't we?

Ex-Reagan Administration economist Bruce Bartlett notes that the last few years have seen a redistribution of wealth upward. He also notes that the shift from defined-benefit pension plans (where you know what you get out of it) to defined-contribution plans (where you know only what you put in) has reduced the middle class's share of America's wealth. Spoiler alert: he's not terribly optimistic these things will change.

The Supreme Court has a busy schedule this week, but a 5-4 majority has already ruled that police can't establish probable cause by using a drug-sniffing dog. Justice Scalia -- writing for a majority improbably including Justices Thomas, Kagan, Sotomayor, and Ginsberg -- established that the dog-sniffing isn't just police establishing cause for further investigation but is itself investigation. Justice Scalia does tend to take these home-is-your-castle cases to heart -- though, as one critic points out, government can watch you in plenty of ways besides actually coming to your house.

Surprise, surprise! California schoolteachers find that they can get better behavior out of their kids by demanding better behavior from themselves. In other words, they're starting with the Man in the Mirror. That sounds like a more conservative way of looking at the problem than zero tolerance policies ever did.

The former Executive Director of the South Carolina Republican Party told an anti-war Iraq vet on Sunday that he wished "the Iraqis had better aim" and that it was a "shame" the vet "didn't come home in a body bag." He said other nasty stuff, too. What's this former South Carolina GOP head's name? Todd Kincannon. Ever heard of him? Me neither. Now let's never speak of him again.

Finally Rush Limbaugh asks in re the alleged "slippery slope" caused by legalization of gay marriage, "who's to say you cannot have sex with a child?" Answer: anyone who legislates and/or enforces an "age of consent" statute. You're welcome, Rush.

Cyprus strikes a deal with the European Union, taking approximately 30% of bank deposits over 100,000 Euro at its largest banks so it can raise enough money to "qualify" for an EU bailout. Last week Parliament tried to pass a bill that hit all Cypriot citizens, but taking the savings of the not-so-rich so you can save the banksters' collective ass is no way to fight the good fight, either.

Julius Genachowski will step down as FCC Chair. Don't let the door hit you on the way out, J-Dawg -- actual bipartisan consensus existed on network neutrality when he arrived, but for him "bipartisanship" meant that corporations, not people, should benefit from net neutrality rules. Perhaps now he'll get a lucrative job with one of the big telecoms he's just spent four years coddling.

Good news! Three U.S. supermarket chains (Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Aldi) have declared they won't stock genetically-modified salmon in their markets, if the FDA approves it, which they haven't yet. The three aforementioned chains aren't the big three (not a word from WalMart, Kroger, or SuperValu, I notice), but, as I always say, there is-so such a thing as bad PR.

Finally, a Texas woman burns her house down (and damages her neighbor's house) after trying to get rid of a snake by setting it on fire. After all, everyone knows that when you set a living creature on fire, it just sits there and takes it. Then again, our elites hardly think more clearly than that, so maybe this fine Texas citizen will run for Congress one day.

Cypriot Parliament rejects controversial plan to pay for bankster bailout by taxing ordinary citizens' deposits. And thus an attempt to literally steal from the poor to give to the rich fails, for now -- as we know, crisis always presents opportunities. (RJ Eskow provides more background here. Spoiler alert: deregulation and austerity play a big role.) Memo to those who'd point out that Cyprus intended to impose a slightly higher tax on larger deposits: pointing out the difference between a pile of dung the flies have found and a pile of dung the flies haven't yet found is a profoundly tedious exercise.

Salon asks how Frankenseed-growing corporation Monsanto "outfoxed" the Obama Administration. While the article pretty thoroughly analyzes Monsanto's war against antitrust laws in re the seed market, you have to wonder, given how often our government bends over backwards for Monsanto, whether the Obama Administration is really getting "outfoxed" here.

The 10th Anniversary of the Iraq War is upon us, and FAIR takes us on a ride through those early days, when our "liberal" media pundits couldn't get enough carnage and death, and couldn't demonize good anti-war citizens enough. The non-sequitur the New York Times spewed forth on March 21 is especially trenchant. But it's not for those easily depressed at the thought that cable news punditoids never get punished for being wrong, and never will, until we can get a la carte cable channel packaging.

Finally, National Journal wonders why so many Republicans raise money for Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-TN), who not only had an affair with one of his patients, but got two abortions with his ex-wife. I can't help but mention that the Journal happens to mention three Democrats who paid much more and much more quickly for their sins. And they deserved it! But inveterate defenders of corporate hegemony like Mr. DesJarlais seem to get plenty of second acts.

U.S. District Court judge bans National Security Letters (NSLs), which come with a gag order on the NSL recipient, ruling that they violate First Amendment protections on free speech. But Judge Illston also stays her ban on NSLs for 90 days, so the Obama Administration can appeal to the Ninth Circuit. Note well the helpful chart showing that the FBI has issued much fewer NSLs since 2007 -- right around the time an Inspector General found the FBI was abusing its power to issue them (a power expanded, not granted, by the PATRIOT Act).

The New York Times finds that corporations have as many job openings now as they did at the height of the financial crisis -- but that they're waiting longer to hire. The Times gives many possible reasons, but when corporations wait, on average, eight days longer to fill a vacancy than they did just four years ago, you might be tempted to think the reason begins with "m" and ends with "oney."

Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) renounces opposition to gay marriage, mainly because his son came out to him two years ago. He comes closer to making the conservative case for gay marriage (cf. paragraphs four, seven, and eight) than Mr. Huntsman did in The American Conservative last month -- though he also thinks, like Mr. Obama, that the states (and certainly not the Supreme Court, per paragraph 11!) should decide the matter. Still, I won't criticize him for changing his mind because it affected him personally, as if people should only come to their convictions via thought experiment.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (E-WI) doesn't rule out a 2016 Presidential bid. Wanna know a secret? Scott Walker is a hell of a campaigner -- he never gets rattled, and he's always ready with a counterpunch. When he says "results" are all that matter, never mind that he doesn't have any results he can reasonably run on -- Democrats planning to oppose him may want to consider getting some results of their own, or actually convincing folks they can get results, rather than just running center-right so they don't offend anyone and hoping for the best.

Surprise, surprise -- Stuart Bowen, the U.S. inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, finds that $60 billion in efforts to "rebuild" Iraq have achieved "limited positive effects.". Of course we know it was worse than that -- that, for example, Kellogg/Brown/Root got $80 million in bonuses for "shoddy" electrical wiring that killed our troops in the shower. Thank God Senator Bob Corker finds Mr. Bowen's findings "appalling" and vows to learn from our mistakes. Here's one: don't send our troops to die in a war just to make some Administration's crony corporations rich.

Also from the "surprise, surprise!" file: according to two researchers (one from the University of California, the other from the University of Michigan), state legislators, at least, think their constituents are a lot more right-wing than they actually are. I still suspect that legislators "think" exactly what their corporate paymasters want them to think.

Top Republicans in the House have written Mr. Obama demanding that he continue the law's Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Program by diverting funds from other ACA programs. While I don't demand that people always do the right thing for the right reasons, people who never do anything good unless they can get an advantage over their opponents are just assholes.

Washington University (St. Louis) researchers claim to have created nanoparticles containing a toxin found in bee venom that can kill HIV. They also claim that it doesn't harm other cells, which was my first question. I'd like to see how it works outside the laboratory, and I wish them good luck on that task.

U.S. Attorney General says the Obama Administration could, technically, kill an American on American soil "in an extraordinary circumstance," but has "no intention of doing so." Well, that's a relief!

Bank of Amerikkka probably hasn't set enough in reserves aside to settle its many pending lawsuits. Why not? Because they're betting on the lawsuits to go more or less their way, and also because the Federal Reserve, which needs to OK bank reserves, has pretty much rubber-stamped banks' reserves lately. What foresight Mr. Obama had in strong-arming all those Senators into confirming Mr. Bernanke for another term as Fed chief -- instead of doing something useful, like strong-arming Senators to pass mortgage cramdown legislation, allegedly one of his priorities.

Texas legislators propose tough mobile-device privacy laws, which would (among other things) require law enforcement to get a warrant before it can get GPS information from your cell phone. Bills at the national level (Mr. Franken's 2011 Senate bill, the just-introduced Lofgren-Poe bill) wouldn't be as tough as Texas's proposed bills. Gov. Perry, who ran a 2012 Presidential campaign we might charitably characterize as "disastrous," doesn't have enough left to lose to veto them -- though I suppose he could wilt under big telecom pressure anyway.

But, as one hand giveth, etc: Peruvian legislators introduce a surveillance bill that tramples on the rights of Peruvian citizens. I don't necessarily mean the rights Peruvians ought to have because they're human beings -- I mean the rights they already have under law. The bill pretty obviously contravenes Peru's own constitution, too.

It's not all bad news, though: a genetically-modified food labeling bill has just passed out of a Vermont House committee, and another one has passed Hawaii's House and moves on its Senate. The Vermont bill does more (Hawaii's only covers imported GMO food), but both states have made progress in doing something 9 out of 10 Americans want done, and something that doesn't actually trample on anyone's rights.

Milwaukee County has closed its investigation of corruption in Scott Walker's office while he was Milwaukee County Executive, and now Gov. Walker's really getting started, hoping to expand a school vouchers program that doesn't even deliver results, and plotting a massive tax cut for the rich that he's of course calling a "middle-class" tax cut. Memo to Wisconsin Democrats: how about maybe nominating someone other than Tom Barrett in 2014?

Swiss voters approve tough executive pay rules, capping bonuses and giving shareholders more power to set executive salaries. Yikes, I've only been asking that we give shareholders non-binding power to set executive salaries here, figuring that even a small percentage of unhappy shareholders can gum up the works. I guess I need to be more aggressive.

Washington state legislator claims that riding bicycles causes more pollution than driving cars. He doesn't provide proof, which is understandable, since it's hard to prove things that ain't so.

Finally, R.I.P. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who died of cancer Tuesday.

Around the table for Sunday, February 3, 2013.

The Consumerist summarizes an FTC report on why debt collectors do such a bad job (like, for example, not even knowing who exactly owes the debt). Key finding: when debt collection corporations can buy debt at 4 cents on the dollar, neither they nor the corporations selling the debt have a whole lot of incentive to get things right.

FAIR catches NBC's David Gregory saying Barack Obama should "confuse the opposition a little bit" by embracing big spending cuts. Because acting like a Republican has helped Barack Obama so much so far! And there's no "question" as to "where the President tries to seek a way forward." The "way forward" is through the people's will, not the elites' will.

ProPublica compiles a list of laws from which Congressfolk and their staffs are somehow exempt. They include whistleblower laws (which comes up twice!), the Freedom of Information Act, and the Occupational Safety and Health Act. Not that this'll surprise you, but Congress also violates laws they're supposed to follow -- no wheelchair-accessible restrooms in House and Senate office buildings, apparently.

Finally, Englishman's dog finds hardened whale puke on the beach -- then said Englishman goes back for it after figuring out it's ambergris, a rare whale digestive agent used by perfume manufacturers, and indeed Mr. Wilman already has a five-figure offer from a French perfume dealer. "It has a musky smell," he says, "but the more you smell it the nicer the smell becomes." Possibly it smells more like money.

Around the table for Thursday, January 31, 2013.

The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy instructs us that the richest Americans pay half the effective tax rate that the poorest Americans pay in state and local taxes, including income, property, sales and excise taxes. News ain't good for middle-class Americans, either. That shouldn't surprise you, given that you only pay sales taxes, for example, on things you buy, and the rich don't need to buy a hundred cheeseburgers for every one you buy because they're a hundred times richer.

For some reason, the Office of Advocacy within the Small Business Administration has criticized scientific assessments of chemical hazards, despite having no particular expertise in that area. And please understand that by "for some reason" I mean "because big corporate lobbyists told them to."

Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke cuts radio spot claiming that, "with officers laid off and furloughed, simply calling 911 and waiting" when you need help "is no longer your best option." Sheriff goes on to suggest that "(y)ou could beg for mercy from a violent criminal, hide under the bed, or you can fight back." That won't backfire on anyone who tries it -- nor could it possibly backfire on Milwaukee County in the form of lawsuits! And he says "we're partners now," like they all do when they're about to abandon you.

Last but certainly not least, the JP Morgan/Chase Board of Directors slashes CEO Jamie Dimon's pay in half -- to "only" $11.5 million. Is hat what people talk about when they say CEOs should get paid all that money because they take risks? The only risk Mr. Dimon took when he presided over that $6 billion "bad bet" from London was that he was going to be slightly less rich. And $10 million of that was a bonus! If I can make "bonus" synonymous with "unearned pile of money," my life will be a success.

Around the table for Friday, January 25, 2013.

The "liberal" media declared Mr. Obama's second inaugural speech signified a massive shift to the left, but FAIR notes that "shift" doesn't square with his policies, which, in Mr. Obama's own words, would have marked him as a moderate Republican during the 1980s. FAIR concentrates mainly on climate change (Mr. Obama might let Keystone XL get built this term) and immigration (record deportations by Mr. Obama!), but we could just as easily do tax policy. And, er, "liberal" media: didn't y'all regurgitate right-wing lies about Obama the Socialist for four years?

Right-wingers argue that NAACP v. Alabama, in which the Supreme Court prevented the state of Alabama from getting the NAACP's membership list, should also apply to anonymous gazillionaire political donors. It's not just that they seem to want to be black without doing the hard work of being black -- 1958 NAACP members could bank on getting terrorized, assaulted or murdered if the state learned their identities, whereas gazillionaire political donors can count on being shamed if good American citizens learn theirs. It's really not the same thing.

Good Jobs First releases report called "The Job-Creation Shell Game," describing how state and local governments give welfare handouts to corporations to lure "jobs" to their area. Spoiler alert: when a state or municipality does this, they don't create jobs; they just take existing jobs from somewhere else. Nice to have it in detail anyway.

Speaking of state shenanigans, Citizens for Tax Justice informs us about "tax swaps," in which states cut good, progressive taxes and hike bad, regressive taxes. Like Mr. Jindal has proposed in Louisiana, which you may have read about in this space on Monday. And other states are trying the same crap.

Finally, France mulls an "internet tax" on the personal data corporations collect (and use for marketing purposes). Completely undiscussed by the article: user privacy. Might/should taxation slow data collection somewhat? Can such an approach work in tandem with giving citizens an opt-out on sale of their personal data?