Thieves in the Temple.

Penny Rants for Wednesday, September 30, 2020: unlikely hope in chaotic times.

So, wondering if this country has "collapsed," maybe? Indi Samarajiva at Medium, who lived through the tail end of Sri Lanka's 26-year-long civil war, says we have. "This is what Americans don't understand. They're waiting to get personally punched in the face while ash falls from the sky. That's not how it happens...Nobody comes on TV and says 'things are officially bad.'" Mr. Samarajiva's average day, as a twenty-something of some privilege in Sri Lanka, went a lot like this: "we used to go out, worry about money, fall in love — life went on. We’d pop the trunk for a bomb check. Turn off our lights for the air raids. I’m not saying that we were untouched...I know people who were beaten, arrested, and went into exile. But...(i)t was mostly food and parties and normal stuff for a dumb twentysomething." Privileged Americans may not yet draw their curtains whenever a pickup truck rolls by, but I find hope in all of this -- not in the sense that "life goes on" even as America dies (talk to George Floyd or Breonna Taylor or the over 200,000 dead from COVID-19 about that!), but that this is how death is supposed to look, and, as Mr. Samarajiva says, "(y)ou can get out of it, but you have to understand where you are to even turn around." After all, Sri Lanka ain't doing too badly these days. They did just crush COVID.

Chris Taylor at Mashable advises us as to how we might stop worrying about our President "Stealing the Election." He says all of our President's flatugasma about maybe not conceding the election until he wins or maybe just throwing out mail-in ballots comprises what Teri Kanefield calls "The Strongman Con" -- if folks think our President really has the power and the will to steal an election, they'll be more likely to throw up their hands and give up and not vote, and so help him win an actual victory. But whatever his will, his "power," here, is far from absolute -- our military might resist walking him out of office but it'll also resist helping him suppress the vote, and state laws govern elections more closely and authoritatively than federal ones do. The reminder that Benito Mussolini marched on Rome with one-tenth of the number of troops he told everyone he had is particularly apt here, as is the reminder that all of our President's foaming at the mouth about "caravans" did not protect Republican House majorities in 2018. Mr. Taylor's prescription for action is a good one: "help() millions of Americans to vote in numbers too big to lie about." I do wish he'd said our President could file "frivolous" lawsuits instead of "spurious" ones in paragraph 13, but that may just be me.

Action: concerning redistricting, clean water, and saner drug policy.

First, some good news for Pennsylvania residents: SB 1242, the Legislative and Congressional Redistricting Act (or LACRA), passed out of the Senate State Government Committee last week, and while Pennsylvania's state legislators have managed to get rid of the independent citizens' commission that characterized the previous redistricting bills we've championed here, LACRA still accomplishes a lot of what those bills would have done: Sec. 504, for example, would prevent redistricting plans from favoring particular incumbents, candidates, or political parties, while Sec. 703 (a) would make it substantially harder for any redrawn districts to divide towns and counties up in the Rorschach blot-districts that blighted our state for so long. Sadly, the House version of LACRA, HB 2638, hasn't even received a committee vote yet. Hence Fair Districts PA helps you tell Senate Majority Leader Corman to schedule a full Senate vote on LACRA, tell House State Government Committee Chair Everett to hold a committee vote on HB 2638, and tell House Speaker Cutler to hold a full House vote on HB 2638. Each of those links contains the officials' phone numbers, so feel free to call them, too.

Meanwhile, the Environmental Defense Fund helps you tell your Congressfolk to fund lead pipe replacement. Getting rid of the lead service pipes that still plague over nine million American homes would do a lot of good things -- like getting the lead out of our drinking water so that children don't suffer brain damage, or like creating jobs for the workers who would change out those lead pipes, or like making it easier to accomplish all the other necessary infrastructure improvements we'll need to make over the next few years. I know, I know, doing it with tax money is "communism" or something, except, of course, that it's not -- it's good Americans chipping in for a better future for all of us. The pipes will pay for themselves in time, not just from reduced health care costs associated with lead in our drinking water, but also in the healthier, more accomplished human beings we'll have doing great things in America once they're no longer saddled with brain damage through no fault of their own. And not for nothing, but folks in low-income areas deserve clean water just as much as the rest of us. If we didn't believe that, how could we look ourselves in the mirror?

Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell your Congressfolk to pass H.R. 3884, the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (or MORE) Act, then the Daily Kos Liberation League still helps you do that. Our House was all set to vote on this bill -- which would essentially legalize pot and fund help for communities ravaged by war-on-drugs policing -- and then decided not to vote on it. Why? Because they were afraid that Republicans would go all nyah-nyah on them for passing that instead of, say, a COVID-19 relief bill. Republicans will go all nyah-nyah on you for anything, of course -- because what else can you do when you can't win arguments on the merits? -- and the House did pass a COVID-19 relief bill over four months ago, so there comes a time when you have to, you know, adult up. And if House Democrats won't do it, we will have to do it for them, by reminding them that the time to do the right thing is always now and the MORE Act is actually rather popular. So, yeah, let's do that.

Around the table: in which certain Florida politicians show their true colors.

Florida Gov. DeSantis proposes disgusting anti-protest bill which would make it a felony to participate (either via on-the-ground protesting or donating to protests) in any demonstration where any property damage or road blocking happens -- but would give you a pass if you hit protestors with your car. The bill gets much, much worse from there, but remember that he didn't propose the bill because it'll ever become law -- he proposed it because being a prick is what passes for persuasion among too many right-wingers these days. But then, when you've done almost as bad a job managing the pandemic as our President has, what opportunities for persuasion remain open to you?

Speaking of evil Florida politicians, Sen. Rick Scott has introduced a bill that would force states to count all votes within 24 hours of Election Day's end -- and wouldn't let them start counting already-received votes until the morning of Election Day. This bill, somehow called the Help America Vote Act of 2020, also has no chance of becoming law -- even this Supreme Court would say it's too close to an election to screw with established election procedures like this -- but again, as one Twitter commenter said, "(i)t's just wild that they're introducing a bill like this in the light of day." Which is the whole point of the exercise -- after all, how else can prick-swingers find each other?

Surprise, surprise, Presidential votaries have planned a crap-ton of violence ahead of Portland (OR) rallies this summer. And they still hide their threats behind weasel words! "(P)eople will get shot, stabbed, and beat," one says, hoping you won't realize exactly who does all the shooting, stabbing, and beating in that formulation, and they also think "justice on our DA" somehow disguises the precise nature of the "justice" they propose. When you confront apparent stupidity on that scale -- which is, like, a daily occurrence these days! -- you might think they wanted their noxious utterings leaked. And though I think the pick-up truck is about to become a symbol of American racism, I think immortality will nonetheless elude them.

Hard to believe, Harry, but American states that tax the rich do rather better than states that don't -- they have less unemployment, faster wage growth, and faster GDP growth. And this must be why "free" marketeers insist that raising taxes on the rich will lead to TEH DISASTURZ!!!!! After all, if you don't have the facts on your side, you almost have to resort to hysteria if you even want to be heard. The right have been teaching a master class in this subject for many years. And it's not a "fever" that'll "pass" -- it won't change until these right-wingers experience shame again.

ProPublica reminds us that a COVID-19 vaccine coming out before the election would be a "miracle." Read the whole thing, so that you have it in mind that science is actually hard and doing it wrong hurts people the next time our President says a vaccine is coming before the election -- or, more likely, whines about "bureaucrats" keeping a vaccine from coming before the election. Maybe our President could have, you know, dealt with COVID-19 in February and March and he wouldn't be up against a deadline now?

Finally, Nathan J. Robinson at Current Affairs delivers the goods yet again, explaining at considerable length why Amy Coney Barrett shouldn't be on our Supreme Court. Many detailed examples of her jurisprudence on immigration, criminal justice, and workers' rights later, we see that Ms. Barrett does indeed demonstrate "a bias toward the powerful and against the powerless," and maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I think a "bias toward the powerful" runs pretty much counter to the whole idea of democracy. (As a bonus, he demolishes arguments based on respecting Ms. Barrett's "intellect": "the moment we discuss the actual results of the rulings, 'intellect' begins to seem a ridiculous criterion on its own.")

Action: concerning corruption, pollution, and privatization.

By now you've likely heard that Congress gave our Department of Defense $1 billion to make personal protective equipment (or PPE) to help battle COVID-19 -- and Defense instead spent most of it plugging perceived holes in its budget wholly unrelated to COVID-19. They've apparently spent (among other expenditures) $22 million on propellers from Rolls-Royce and over $13 million making drones, a press release trumpeting the saving of "14 jobs." That's almost a million dollars a job! Could it be that our Administration is trying to prove that government can't do anything right? I kid, of course -- they're absolutely trying to "prove" that, while simultaneously asserting that only this President can "fix" it! But corruption is still corruption, hence Public Citizen helps you tell your Congressfolk to investigate our Pentagon's use or misuse of these funds. And remember: every dollar misspent means fewer masks and gowns for hospital workers working directly with COVID-19 patients.

Meanwhile, our Administration wants to roll back protections against toxic wastewater from coal plants, even though they pump out all kinds of toxins -- including mercury, lead, and arsenic, all linked to cancer, heart disease, diabetes and developmental problems in kids. Clean Air Act regulations restricted emissions from coal smokestacks, so coal corporations started putting the pollution into wastewater and dumped it into our rivers and streams! Then the Obama Administration issued regulations addressing coal wastewater, but now this Administration wants to roll them back. They're probably ready to tell us that this whole story just proves that ALL TEH REGULASHUNZ AREZ TEH USELESSEZ!!!!! -- that "corporations will just find another way to pollute," or something. But what kind of message does that send to our children? "Don't do the right thing, ever, because wrongdoers will find a way to confound you?" U.S. PIRG helps you tell our EPA to reject its own plan to roll back toxic wastewater emissions from coal plants.

Finally, corporations are trying to privatize Pennsylvania's public water systems, but HB 2746 and HB 2597 would require that any proposed sale of our public water to private corporations go before the voters first. And what would private corporations have to fear? If they really can run it better than our government, they shouldn't have any trouble proving it to the voters! Of course they can't, since we all know water privatization means higher prices, worse service, and lost jobs, and that's only in the short run -- in the long run, water privatization means that the people who drink the water lose all control over its maintenance. Our government, after all, is accountable to us, and that remains true even after they fail us; private corporations are only accountable to their shareholders, and executives try their damnedest to avoid even that responsibility. Hence Food and Water Action helps you tell your PA state legislators to ensure that we get to vote on whether we sell our water systems.

I'll be taking care of a health issue over the next few days, so posting may be light. Before that happens, I feel compelled to mention that I've received numerous action alerts exhorting us to prevent Republicans from voting on a new Supreme Court justice before Inauguration Day 2021, but I haven't passed any of them along, because I wanted the Senate to vote on Merrick Garland in 2016 and I am not a powermad hypocrite like Mitch McConnell. I know some folks will say I speak from a position of privilege, that I am not one of the folks who stand to lose the most from replacing the last Justice Ginsberg with a reactionary (i.e., folks of color and gay and transgender folks), and thus I have the "luxury" of following the rules. But I say that following the rules isn't actually a luxury even if so many Americans (most of them rich!) act like it is, and I also say that if we say one thing in 2016 because it suits us and then say the opposite in 2020 because it suits us then we become the folks we most hate. And I also say that putting a sympathetic Supreme Court Justice on the court is not the only way to fight for justice; yes, a 6-3 right-wing majority on the Court will suck, but we have dealt with worse as a nation and succeeded. In any case, if I find our President's eventual nominee wanting, I will advocate for our Senators to reject her, and if we do that, and we make our Senators afraid for their jobs, they will comply. It's the only thing that really works in such instances; everything else is a shortcut.

Around the table: in which we shake our damn heads at yet more whining from the right.

Grand jury in Louisville, KY charges one officer in Breonna Taylor shooting, and only with wanton endangerment (and not even endangerment of Ms. Taylor!); protests immediately follow, during which two officers get shot and almost 50 other folks get arrested. If said police officer had been convicted merely of wanton endangerment after being charged with murder and manslaughter I might be a tiny bit less upset, since conviction is (and should be) difficult, but note well how many ordinary folks get a dozen charges thrown at them so they'll throw up their hands and plead guilty to one or two. The USA Today report, by the way, gives no clue about who shot the two officers.

Upon the occasion of Santa Cruz's banning of "predictive policing," Matthew Guariglia at the Electronic Frontier Foundation reminds us that "Technology Can't Predict Crime." This should be fairly clear, once you consider that when police over-arrest black folks to begin with, they feed the "predictive policing" system with bad data. You'll no doubt hear politicians saying "but if it agrees with what we've seen in the past, it must be right!" But that's not how inductive reasoning works, and even if it did, you still have to ensure that we're not seeing what we've "seen" because we have hundreds of beams in our eyes.

Ho hum, top scientist on Administration effort to find a COVID-19 vaccine wouldn't divest himself of $10 million in shares in his former corporation which just so happens to be among those corporations racing to finish a vaccine. He sold $12 million in shares in another corporation trying to develop a vaccine, but that's a little like King Solomon actually splitting the baby in half, and his whining about anyone possibly thinking his ethical compass is anything but perfect doesn't recommend him, either. I'm old enough to remember when people would avoid even the appearance of corruption.

Natasha Lennard at The Intercept reminds us that in the newly-designated "anarchist jurisdiction" of New York City, "Cops Crush Every Tiny Protest." Did you also think of FBI officers cracking down on Occupy encampments back in the day when you read that? Also, too, denying federal funding to cities, as our President would do, is also a way of defunding the police! Of course he thought of that beforehand -- the only thing that man ever aims to do is make problems worse so he can make himself seem more indispensable. And I said exactly the same thing about George W. Bush back in the day.

Former Reagan Administration Chief of Staff/Secretary of State James Baker will apparently for our President in November, his biographers saying that Mr. Baker feels that the "myriad ethical scandals surrounding" our President were "worth it to get conservative judges, tax cuts and deregulation." Most of our President's deregulatory efforts have died in court, and these aren't "conservative" judges so much as reactionary ones, but whatever. Odd, though, that Mr. Baker does not appear to have considered stacking anything else, like our President's repeated racist remarks and his repeated stated desire to become a dictator, against "tax cuts" and the like. Why, it makes you wonder if it's ever worth it to look to a "respected" member of the right!

Finally, we learn about truck convoys in support of our President driving through the streets of America. Of course I immediately thought of all those Confederate flag-laden Hummers plowing through Portland, and of course my immediate reaction to "I'm tired of people putting down our President" is waaaaaaah! Interesting that the article does eventually slip the word "caravan" in to describe these convoys. I think I'm going to be calling them "caravans" for the rest of the year.

Around the table: in which we shake our damn heads at yet more Presidential drama.

Presidential votaries hinder early voting in Fairfax, VA. Whether or not plaintiffs will be able to hang these folks on Virginia state law (which prohibits political advocacy within 40 feet of a polling place), that doesn't change the fact that confident people don't have to chant and wave flags in front of a polling place. Also, these I'm-not-touching-you games don't do well at persuading others to vote for their candidate. And though we know relentless negative TV advertising depresses turnout, making someone throw up their hands and go home once they've already trekked out to the polling place may be another thing entirely.

Federal agents abduct two Native American protestors at a holy site in the path of our Administration's vanity border wall construction, and hold them without access to a lawyer for almost 24 hours; their detainment (at a private prison over two hours away) includes at least two strip-searches and being "chained at the feet and waists." You know, in case you thought this was only happening to police brutality protestors. Anyone else think the private prison's claim that they couldn't tell the two activists were women is utter horsedoodle -- or worse, was a show they put on for the Administration and/or its votaries?

Shane Burley at TruthOut finds catches T-shirts disappearing from retail site Teespring while far-right groups actually committing violence on the ground still selling their wares. Freedom: it's best when it's completely conditional! And Teespring spokeshacks flat-out lied about it, too, first alleging "copyright violations," then when confronted with evidence to the contrary, admitted it was all about the word "antifa." Using a corporate website to hawk your wares is always fraught with danger, particularly when the corporate types live in fear of offending right-wingers, but don't give a damn about those of us who are actually offended by the noise of Nazi wannabes. So go ahead and boycott their sorry asses. It's not like the internet is a tiny place.

Upon hearing that our President has led his votaries to believe he's actually received a Nobel Peace Prize when he's only been nominated, I feel compelled to note, again, that none of his votaries will verify his assertion; they'll just take it at face value because they want it to be true. And maybe if he gets re-elected, and doesn't actually win it (which sure seems likely!), his votaries will whine about how they "took" it from him! (Also, too, over 200 individuals and 100 groups were nominated this year, so I can't even say it's "an honor to be nominated," as they say about the Oscars.)

While it may not be precisely true that 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Amy Coney Barrett -- reportedly at or near the top of our President's short list to replace the late Justice Ginsberg on our Supreme Court -- belongs to an organization that inspired Margaret Atwood's famous novel The Handmaid's Tale (now a Hulu TV series starting Elizabeth Moss), one Facebook meme of Ms. Barrett in a handmaid's headdress might be weapons-grade PR against her. Our President loves to create drama, of course, so he might pick Ms. Barrett precisely because of the uproar it'd create, where a choice like 11th Circuit Judge Barbara Lagoa would more likely fly under the radar.

Finally, speaking of drama, our Justice Department designates three U.S. cities -- New York, Seattle, and Portland (OR) -- as "anarchist jurisdictions," meaning our Administration could deprive them of federal funding. Or try to, anyway -- the only leg our President has to stand on here is a memo he wrote, which, last I looked, isn't law, no matter what he thinks. More likely he just likes using the word "anarchist" as often as he can, to make people think ZOMG TEH CITIEZ AREZ TEH LAWLESSEZ!!!!! Again, our President never talks about "law and order" as it would relate to polluters and banksters.

Action: concerning good House bills, consumer protection, and product safety.

Happy Tuesday, good peoples! Now call your Senators and tell them to pass H.R. 1, the For the People Act; H.R. 2, the Moving Forward Act; H.R. 3, the Lower Drug Costs Now Act; H.R. 4, the Voting Rights Advancement Act; H.R. 5, the Equality Act; H.R. 6, the American Dream and Promise Act; H.R. 7, the Paycheck Fairness Act; H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act; H.R. 397, the Butch Lewis Act; H.R. 535, the PFAS Action Act; H.R. 582, the Raise the Wage Act; H.R. 986, the Protecting Americans with Pre-Existing Conditions Act; H.R. 1146, the Arctic Cultural and Coastal Plain Protection Act; H.R. 1373, the Grand Canyon Centennial Act; H.R. 1644, the Save the Internet Act; H.R. 2214, the NO BAN Act; H.R. 2474, the PRO Act; H.R. 2513, the Corporate Transparency Act; H.R. 2722, the SAFE Act; H.R. 5035, the Television Viewer Protection Act; H.R. 7120, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act; and H.J. Res. 79, which would remove the expiration date from the original Equal Rights Amendment. Don't believe the hype that our Senators have a lot on their plates right now! If they'd have passed these bills earlier, they'd have less to do now. Besides, you don't get to make excuses when you don't do your job, so why should they?

Meanwhile, you probably have some experience with price-gouging during this pandemic, so along comes H.R. 6450/S. 3853, the Price Gouging Prevention Act, which would (as its title suggests) prevent sellers from using an emergency to jack up prices more than 10 percent over the average price over the previous 120 days. If you're concerned about the rights of the accused, note well that Sec. 3 (b) (2) gives sellers the opportunity to rebut any presumptions of price gouging by providing "clear and convincing evidence that the increase in price of the consumer good involved is directly attributable to additional costs paid by the seller in procuring, acquiring, or providing the consumer during the emergency period." Seems fair, though "free" market votaries won't think so. And I'm old enough to remember when they would, though whether they were just fronting then or have simply devolved into morons now is a question historians will have to answer. The bill would also empower our Federal Trade Commission (or FTC) to enforce its provisions and would not preempt stronger state laws against price gouging. Hence Public Citizen helps you tell your Congressfolk to protect us from financial predators by passing the Price Gouging Prevention Act.

Finally, Johnson & Johnson has announced that it'll stop selling talcum-based baby powder in most of North America, supposedly because demand has declined, but one must wonder if the many thousand complaints consumers made about asbestos in their talcum powder (apparently it's hard to find talcum in nature without tripping over asbestos) had more to do with it. And, sadly, despite their declaration, talcum-based baby powder remains on your local shelves, because J&J didn't issue a recall, which would kinda be the next step. If you're worried about J&J being able to sell down its stock of baby powder already on the shelves, consider more carefully whether we should expose our babies to cancer and mesothelioma, two common health problems scientists associate with asbestos. Really, the right answer is never "take care of corporations first," and the right answer is always "take care of people first." Gosh, when I was a youth, I thought moral questions would be thornier than this. They're not, so U.S. PIRG helps you tell J&J to put people first by recalling its remaining stocks of talcum-based baby powder.

Action: concerning the HEROES Act, cruelty to immigrants, and Social Security.

You've heard that Democrats and Republicans are "negotiating" another COVID-19 stimulus bill? And you've heard Republicans say Democrats are "blocking" their efforts in some way or other? Don't believe the hype! Our House passed H.R. 6800, the HEROES Act, over four months ago already, and that bill's a good enough COVID-19 stimulus bill -- it would fund states and localities, it would fund COVID-19 testing and tracing, it would repeal hedge fund manager tax cuts, it would extend enhanced unemployment benefits, and it would issue another round of stimulus checks, among other things. So why haven't our Senators passed it? Oh, you know, because it doesn't give big corporations blanket immunity from COVID-19-related lawsuits, it doesn't expand three-martini lunch tax breaks, and it doesn't give Congress the power to gut Social Security without debate. I wish it were more complicated than that, but it's not, such is the intellectual vapidity of our opposition these days. So call your Senators and tell them to pass the HEROES Act. After all, why do they negotiate with each other like they're more important than we are?

Meanwhile, you've also no doubt heard by now that at least one OB/GYN at an ICE concentration camp in Georgia did so many hysterectomies there that one whistleblower called him "the uterus collector," but outrage doesn't mean much if it doesn't translate into results, hence Daily Kos helps you tell your House Reps to demand an investigation into alleged mass hysterectomies of immigrant detainees. Surely you won't have to convey the moral reasons for such an investigation -- though if you want to tell your Reps that great nations always treat immigrants with the dignity and compassion they deserve, go ahead! What could it hurt? -- but even the political calculations should not dissuade your House Reps from investigating this matter. Most people oppose cruelty, after all, and the pro-cruelty crowd (not that they'd ever describe themselves as such!) don't win elections without a lot of help from outside factors. Besides, all that hysteria about TEH CARAVANZ!!!! didn't exactly help Republicans keep their House majority in 2018, did it?

Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell your Congressfolk to pass a "resolution of disapproval" that would block our President's Executive Order delaying the collection of the payroll taxes that fund Social Security, then Social Security Works still helps you do that. Make no mistake, this payroll tax "holiday" is no holiday for working families, and not just because so many of their employers aren't taking advantage of the "holiday," nor because working families will owe all that money when the "holiday" expires -- this "holiday" is absolutely a way to cut Social Security's funding to the bone, and our President has said this out loud. Yeah, he's also said he'd like to fund Social Security a different way, but what way will that be? It won't be by taxing his rich cronies, that's for sure! Don't believe any hype from Presidential votaries that blocking the payroll tax "holiday" would be "like a tax hike." It's literally not a tax hike to keep collecting the taxes everyone already knows they have to pay.

Around the table: in which we confront yet another (admittedly narrow) path to re-election for our President.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passes at the age of 87. I'm not sure I'd describe her as a "cautious" or "moderate" judge (though The Guardian ain't the only ones doing so), not just because judges aren't firebrands by temperament or job description, but also because she fought sexism and discrimination wherever she saw it long before it was popular, founding the ACLU's Women's Rights Project over 30 years before becoming the dean of our Supreme Court's liberal wing. May her memory be a blessing.

America's Last Journalist, Greg Palast, warns that our President could "win" re-election -- in the event of massive violent right-wing "protests" that prevent states from counting all the votes -- by invoking the 12th Amendment and throwing the election to the House. The House would vote for President by state under the 12th Amendment, and since Republicans hold majorities in 26 states even though Democrats have a 40-seat majority overall, our President would win. Mr. Palast's solution? Massive in-person day-of-election voting no matter how many Proud Boys show up, so as to make the results unmistakeable.

House Democrats have apparently decided to delay a vote on the MORE Act, a bill that would essentially legalize pot, until after the election -- supposedly to concentrate on a COVID-19 relief bill, even though they passed one of those (and a good one) in May and you have to wonder why haven't shouted that from the rooftops nearly enough, let alone slam Mob Boss Mitch for trying to pass a really crappy relief bill instead. This delay is cowardice, and stupid cowardice at that, since polls tell us pot legalization is actually popular. Democrats: so smart, they're stupid.

Upon learning that our Administration has threatened to defund Connecticut schools for participating in a trans-friendly athletic conference, I wonder how they would expect to win a lawsuit against such a thing, since such funding deprivation would affect all Connecticut students, but then I remember that a) his votaries think merely making the threat is "doing something" and b) folks can't sue them for every criminal act they perpetrate. About a) they're likely correct; about b) they're likely wrong, though all the bad judges they're putting in our federal courts might eventually change that.

In a peripherally-related note, our President says a COVID-19 vaccine will go out "immediately" to the public not because he really thinks that, but so people will say he "did something." A lot of his votaries won't even notice if they don't see a vaccine three days before Election Day -- which, given that it does actually take time to ensure a potential vaccine doesn't actually just shoot poison, seems far more likely than not. No matter, though -- if a vaccine doesn't come out "quickly enough," our President will just whine about how this is just more evidence that everyone's out to get him, which, strangely, doesn't seem offend all the "tough guys" who love him.

Finally, our President relates an MSNBC anchor getting shot by police at a protest thusly: "He got hit in the knee with a canister of tear gas and he went down. He was down. 'My knee, my knee.' Nobody cared, these guys didn’t care, they moved him aside. And they just walked right through...It was the most beautiful thing. No, because after we take all that crap for weeks and weeks, and you finally see men get up there and go right through them, wasn’t it really a beautiful sight? It’s called law and order." Ugh, first off: other people's suffering is not "beautiful"! Second, what "crap" did you take? Protesting police brutality hurts your fee-fees? Third, what a childish notion of "law and order" this is, one that merely worships raw power, and one our President would never, ever imagine includes putting polluters or banksters in jail.

Action: concerning corporate welfare, concentration camps, and saner drug policy.

You remember those accountability features Congress built into the CARES Act? Yeah, there weren't enough of them, I know, but our Administration seems determined even to ignore the ones that exist, as our Office of Management and Budget (or OMB) has apparently told federal agencies disbursing COVID-19-related relief funds to simply ignore reporting requirements -- including the one that would tell us whether this use of taxpayer funding actually saves any jobs! I keep saying the same thing because they keep doing the same thing -- this Administration doesn't hate "bureaucracy"; they only hate that part of the bureaucracy that actually help good Americans, hence their utter disgust for anti-pollution regulations, and their utter disgust for laws that would hold them accountable to their bosses, the American people. Who are the ones who fund their little corporate welfare slush fund, I feel compelled to note with the italics hammer. Hence the Project on Government Oversight helps you tell our OMB to rescind its guidance that hides how well our government uses our money during this pandemic.

Meanwhile, giant investment corporation BlackRock has (and stop me if you've heard this one before!) talked a good game about being "socially responsible" in their investments, which would be gratifying, especially coming from a corporation that manages close to $6 trillion in assets (as of 2018) -- except that they still invest directly in Palantir, the notorious data management corporation that helps our Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (or ICE) run its even more notorious concentration camps. So investing in family separation, terroristic raids, putting kids in cages -- it all sure makes the phrase "socially responsible" sound hollow! The more charitable among you might tell me it takes time to root out all the evil in your portfolio once you've resolved to do it, but that's why we point it out to these big corporations, right? Hence the Daily Kos Liberation League helps you tell BlackRock to pull its investments out of the concentration camp business by divesting from Palantir. I mean, evil can find plenty of money on its own, I would think.

Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell your House Reps to pass H.R. 3884, the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment & Expungement (or MORE) Act, then Drug Policy Alliance still helps you do that. The MORE Act would not only legalize marijuana (by removing it from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act), but would invest in the communities of color at which our government has targeted its half-century-long "war on drugs." No, "targeted" does not overstate the case -- but you don't have to believe me about that; you can believe former Nixon Administration counsel John Ehrlichman, who said, out loud, that the "war on drugs" had rather little to do with illicit drugs taking away good Americans' freedoms and rather more to do with targeting civil rights and anti-war protestors. And yes, drugs do take away your freedoms, if you abuse them, and no, not every street drug should be legal, but putting pot on the level of something truly destructive like heroin smacks of the mistakes of the Prohibition Era. And surely we don't want to go down that road.

Around the table: in which we confront historical demons both recent and ancient.

Good Jobs First report finds that South Carolina lost over $400 million in property taxes last year due to all the tax abatements they handed out to corporations. Always remember: tax breaks for them are, essentially, tax hikes for us, since governments still have a job to do (whether they like it or not!) and now have less money to do it. Also, too, as Paul O'Neill instructed us many years ago, corporate welfare handouts have little-if-any influence over where a corporation decides to locate or build, as we saw when public outcry over handouts for Amazon didn't actually prevent Amazon from building a new office in New York City.

I alluded to this the other day, but America unfortunately has a long history of sterilizing criminals, which is particularly upsetting when you realize we also have a long history of criminalizing dissent and otherness. Right-wingers will still try to turn this knowledge to their advantage by implying that we're making much ado about "nothing new," but saying something isn't "new" enough for your taste (or "and you're surprised?") is generally a way of avoiding saying it's wrong, and they really have no good reason to be afraid of saying so. Do they?

Jeet Heer at The Nation reminds us "Biden Republicans Are a Political Illusion." Precisely because they actually like everything about this Administration except the obnoxiousness of our President -- and they can forget his obnoxiousness once a hundred or so Federalist Society-approved judges get lifetime appointments to federal courts. Of course, if you've wondered who listens to George Will or Max Boot or James Comey anymore, or if you remember those pro-Hillary ads Republicans cut in 2016, you are not surprised by this finding.

When I'm confronted with our President saying out loud that trees "just explode" from being so dry for so long, I think, yeah, I know what he meant. But note well that whenever a Democratic Presidential nominee misspeaks one-twentieth as much as this, Republicans act like it's the end of the damn world. Why, in 2012 they made a convention slogan ("we built that"?) by wrenching an Obama utterance completely out of its context! Someone needs to remind them that hysteria isn't very becoming of conservatism. Or, more precisely, we need to keep reminding everyone else that hysteria isn't very becoming of conservatism.

In a peripherally-related note, Oregon state Senator who twice joined a Senate walkout to deny a quorum for climate change legislation watched his own home burn down due to recent wildfires -- but actually blames the anti-pollution crowd! Setting aside the tantrums too many politicians throw when anyone mentions climate change, Sen. Girod can't articulate his point very well, either, which suggests that "forest management" is just a phrase he heard that he thinks will shut people up. He'd do better to try to persuade folks -- unless, of course, he's one of these politicians who thinks persuading people is beneath him.

Finally, I know digging out the worst thing Bill Barr has said this week is a three-shovel job, but I'll try anyway: about his own Justice Department, he unfurled this truly awesome dung nugget: "(n)ame one successful organization or institution where the lowest level employees’ decisions are deemed sacrosanct, there aren’t. There aren’t any letting the most junior members set the agenda. It might be a good philosophy for a Montessori preschool, but it is no way to run a federal agency." Clearly he regards anyone other than him having a say about anything as an existential threat -- and, uh, can anyone think of a "successful organization or institution" that works pretty well when it's run from the bottom up? That's right, American democracy.

Action: concerning paycheck fairness and the right to repair.

H.R. 2694, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, may get a full House vote this week, and it would, at long last, force employers to make the same accommodations for their pregnant workers that they already make for their disabled ones. And if you're quick to yell THE PREGNANCIEZ IZ NOT TEH DISABILITIEZ!!!!!, please do three things: 1) slap yourself, 2) imagine yourself walking around with 30 extra pounds and a constant urge to pee, and 3) consider that employers wouldn't have to make these accommodations forever because the pregnancy will end. The bill would also prevent employers from retaliating against workers for requesting reasonable accommodations, denying employment to pregnant workers merely because they know they'll have to make those accommodations, or force employees to accept unnecessary accommodations when they can make reasonable ones. The key word, as you may have noticed, is "reasonable," so keep that in mind when right-wingers start with their imaginary horror stories about what'll happen if we treat pregnant workers with fairness and dignity. Moms Rising helps you tell your House Reps to pass the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania residents, take note: Penn PIRG helps you tell your state legislators to pass "right-to repair" legislation. Why? Because we generated nearly 60 million tons of e-waste (or waste from computers and computerized gadgets) just last year, which would represent the weight of over 160 Empire State Buildings. And why do we generate so much waste? Because we're drawn to the new and the now, sure, but also because big corporations like Apple and Microsoft make it prohibitively difficult for you to repair your own products, and not just by refusing to give third-party repair shops access to parts and manuals -- I'm old enough to remember installing a faster processor and more RAM in my Apple laptop from the '90s; just a few years later I didn't even find screws on the outside of my iBook. And if we could do that easily again, we could make our computers and phones last longer! Not to pile on, but all this e-waste also means we have a crap-ton more toxic chemicals like mercury polluting our air, land, and water, and it seems to me we shouldn't tolerate that, either.

Around the table: and now for another exciting episode of "irony or hypocrisy?"

Numerous whistleblowers allege "jarring medical neglect" ICE concentration camp, including an "inordinate rate" of hysterectomies and a refusal to test detainees for COVID-19. You'll recall, of course, that Nazi concentration camps were also notorious for forced hysterectomies, although, hey, that's happened plenty in America, too (remember Carrie Buck?). Sadly, too many Americans will hear of forced hysterectomies and think "good, don't let them reproduce" and "thank God our President is doing something." Remember that they also think of themselves as good people, perhaps even good people "driven" to do evil.

ProPublica finds no shortage of people who "Know How to Prevent Megafires," and wonders "Why Won't Anybody Listen?" I was all ready to guess it had to do with our leaders' refusal to solve problems and pretend that the persistence of problems makes them indispensable, but apparently not -- folks have an understandable-yet-tragic resistance to setting controlled fires, though controlled fires would reduce the amount of "fuel load" and thus reduce the number and intensity of the wildfires we're seeing all across the West Coast now. So maybe our President had a point when he blamed forest mismanagement -- not that you'd necessarily hear it over his refusal to admit climate change also plays a role.

I guess it's good that HHS spokeshack Michael Caputo apologized to his staff for saying he was fighting the "deep state" by trying to bully the CDC into issuing information more favorable to our President, but he also made a lot of excuses for his behavior. I mean, I would wish him well in resolving his health issues, and of course I don't condone any death threats made against anyone, but real leaders don't mention their personal problems; they just apologize for their wrongdoing and either resign or do better. Of course, every time our President sees a bad leader, he thinks that's my kind of guy!

Scientific American makes first Presidential endorsement in its 175-year history and, OK, it's Joe Biden. Their case first highlights our President's multitudinous failures and then lists Mr. Biden's proposals, which admittedly sound better than they did, say, a year ago. Just remember that a lot of the folks who say of Scientific American that THEYZ SHOULDZ STAYZ OUTZ OFZ TEH POLITICZ!!!!! are permanent students of YouTube University who of course wouldn't dream of "staying out of the science."

Former Administration economic "advisor" Gary Cohn says he's "not sure" if he'll vote for the President who used to employ him. Dig how he says "I actually vote on issues," as if all of us "little people" don't, and as if "keeping ignorant assholes out of office" isn't an issue. And just like the rest of them who pretend to make such a big show of their independence, you know which way he's really going. Hint: Joe Biden has pledged to roll back those tax-cuts-for-the-rich Mr. Cohn worked so hard to pass.

Finally, one of our papers of record publishes this slab of hot-and-steaming by one Danielle Pletka, who says she "Never Considered" voting for our President last time around, but she "May Be Forced to Vote for Him This Year." She argues that the far left controls Joe Biden, an argument not exactly buttressed by his record, and I'm sure her argument's resemblance to any argument our President has made is sheer coincidence. Worse than that, of course, is paragraph 9's casual equation of "execrable gun-toting racists" with the AOC/Warren wing of the Democratic party -- and by saying she might be "forced" to vote for our President, she has thus expressed a preference for the execrable.

Action: concerning good House bills, bad methane regulations, and bad corporate acquisitions.

Happy Tuesday, good peoples! Now call your Senators and tell them to pass H.R. 1, the For the People Act; H.R. 2, the Moving Forward Act; H.R. 3, the Lower Drug Costs Now Act; H.R. 4, the Voting Rights Advancement Act; H.R. 5, the Equality Act; H.R. 6, the American Dream and Promise Act; H.R. 7, the Paycheck Fairness Act; H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act; H.R. 397, the Butch Lewis Act; H.R. 535, the PFAS Action Act; H.R. 582, the Raise the Wage Act; H.R. 986, the Protecting Americans with Pre-Existing Conditions Act; H.R. 1146, the Arctic Cultural and Coastal Plain Protection Act; H.R. 1373, the Grand Canyon Centennial Act; H.R. 1644, the Save the Internet Act; H.R. 2214, the NO BAN Act; H.R. 2474, the PRO Act; H.R. 2513, the Corporate Transparency Act; H.R. 2722, the SAFE Act; H.R. 5035, the Television Viewer Protection Act; H.R. 7120, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act; and H.J. Res. 79, which would remove the expiration date from the original Equal Rights Amendment. Do I "keep saying the same thing"? Yes, I do, if what I keep saying is the right thing. Let our Senators listen to anyone but their big donors for once, and then I'll count the colors in my garden. Until then, it's hammertime.

Meanwhile, our Administration has formally weakened methane emission regulations, by repealing requirements that oil and gas corporations install the technology that would detect and repair methane leaks. Ugh, one more time: methane packs a much bigger climate-change punch than even coal emissions, leaked methane is a waste of usable energy, and leaked methane also deprives the taxpayer of royalties if said leaking occurs on public lands. But what's all that pollution and waste and lost revenue next to gas drilling corporation executives being able to gild the plumbing on their 19th vacation homes? Seriously, that's all our Administration's new rule does: hand out welfare to corporations and rich people. Like everything else they do! Hence Penn Environment helps you tell your Senators to block this Administration's new methane emissions rule. Congress would have to accomplish this by passing a "resolution of disapproval," and you may be tempted to wait until a new President and a new Senate come into office, but I wouldn't count on that, and anyway, our duty is always to do the right thing right now.

Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell our government to block the proposed sale of DNA-collecting corporation Ancestry to big private equity corporation Blackstone, then Demand Progress still helps you do that. Hopefully I've identified the problem with the proposed sale by identifying what each of these corporations does -- it's bad enough that big corporations get their grubby hands so deep in your investments, so you certainly would not want their grubby hands in your private information, and your DNA is as private as it gets. And I do not accept the notion that "you give your DNA to someone to help figure out where you came from and you take your chances." Why must it be like that? Because the internet's a big place? Because the "free" market is sacred? I'm so old-fashioned I only think doing what's right is sacred, and letting big corporations buy your DNA info is wrong. And I've never believed the internet is "too big to civilize," no matter how much Our Glorious Elites want you to believe it. And I always choose civilization over chaos.

Around the table: in which we describe the difference between the "deep state" and how Presidential votaries imagine the "deep state."

When I hear that our President claims the right to "put" "down" any riots that might occur after the upcoming election, I hasten to point out that after his victory in 2016, the violence came exclusively from the right, even though liberal protestors took to the streets almost immediately. I also point out that most of the violence following 2016 was of the spray-swastikas-on-statues variety; now that so many of our President's votaries cannot deny, in their heart of hearts, how awful he is, how much worse will they react this time, win or lose?

Factcheck.org evaluates fanciful tale of how nearly 20,000 fake IDs seized at Chicago airport means TEH VOTURZ FRAUDZ!!!!, and finds it wanting. Even our Bureau of Customs and Border Protection won't say the IDs are for "voter fraud," though they do list five other possible utilities the fake IDs might have. Illinois's Secretary of State office lists a sixth -- that the fake IDs help underage college kids get into bars -- and I think we'd all do well to apply Occam's Razor here.

Our President suggests that Joe Biden might be taking unnamed performance-enhancing drugs in order to appear more with-it. "That's what I hear," he says, because "hearing" stuff means never having to verify if it's true! You know, there could always be another explanation for Mr. Biden's poor debate performances early on: he's been faking infirmity in a long game of rope-a-dope. It's not a game I'd play; I would prefer dominating opponents, not least because too many liberals think they're too good to do that. Anyway, I guess we won't know more until after the next round of debates.

Another day, another Administration official saying that he tried to change CDC reports about COVID-19 so they'd put our President in a better light because he was fighting the "deep state." They really hope you can't tell the difference between lawful restrictions on Presidential power (i.e., not the "deep state") instead of bureaucratic attempts to ignore the express will of the American people (i.e., the "deep state" as described by Michael Glennon, among others). But, again, the President is not America, and I'm sure our "deep state" is quite pleased with him, since the defense contractor welfare is still flowing and corporate executives are concentrating shareholder power like they haven't in almost a century.

Finally, I suppose we should be thankful that Presidential confidant Roger Stone has provided (via his interview with Alex Jones) a helpful list of all the awful things our President could do if he loses on Election Day, ranging from seizing ballots in Nevada to using the Insurrection Act to arrest various enemies; it's the kind of histrionics that makes me wonder if our President really is a Democrat plant. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if our President just packs it in following a defeat -- not just because whining on Twitter for the next four years would be so much easier than having to follow through on a declaration of martial law, but also because it'll manufacture weeks of drama over the "betrayal" his supporters feel at his "abandonment" of them, followed by years of drama over their inevitable reconciliation.

Action: concerning the HEROES Act, our Post Office, Arctic drilling, and corporate welfare.

Happy Monday, good Americans! Now would be a good time to call your Senators (whose phone numbers you can find using the tools in the upper right-hand corner of this page, or the bottom of this page, if you're on a cellphone) and tell them to pass H.R. 6800, the HEROES Act, and H.R. 8015, the Delivering for America Act. At this writing, 122 days have passed since our House passed the HEROES Act, even though the HEROES Act would do everything a decent COVID-19 relief bill should do, like fund testing and tracing, extend enhanced unemployment benefits, and issue another round of stimulus checks. But, alas, Republicans hold our Senate, and the only thing Mob Boss Mitch McConnell knows how to do is stamp his foot and say no. The Delivering for America Act, which would roll back the changes our Postmaster General made to wreck our Post Office, has been awaiting a Senate vote for a somewhat shorter length of time, but this is no less shameful, considering the 2020 election could be at stake. So keep calling your Senators, because shame is all that'll get them to act. No, it works; I've seen it work before.

Meanwhile, opening ANWR to oil drilling was one of the "accomplishments" of the 2017 tax "reform," and our President has lately announced plans to drill in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (or ANWR). But bad politicians have been trying to open up ANWR to oil drilling corporations for decades, and at this writing five of America's six largest banks have said they won't fund any drilling efforts there. Whether that's because drilling on public lands is rather unpopular or because the big banks know there won't be enough oil in ANWR to justify the effort, I couldn't say. I can say, however, that the notorious Bank of America is the big bank that has not said they won't fund drilling efforts in ANWR, hence the League of Conservation Voters helps you tell Bank of America to reject the funding of Arctic oil drilling projects. Not just for the caribou or for the Gwich'in people, but also for the waste of effort -- it's just not worth destroying ANWR just so a few oil corporation executives can gild the plumbing in their 19th vacation homes. Believe me, that's all that's going to come from ANWR drilling. Well, that and pollution and disruption of ancestral homelands.

Finally, H.R. 7781, the End Polluter Welfare Act, would increase royalties for drilling on public lands, prevent our government from offering "royalty relief" to big drilling corporations, repeal liability limits when oil and gas drillers pollute our lands, end new federally-funded fossil fuel research, stop internationally-sourced funding from going to fossil fuel projects in America, and get rid of a bunch of "tax incentives" toward fossil fuel development -- among many, many other things. Seriously, giving fossil fuel corporations welfare handouts would be a little like giving the New York Yankees extra money every year so that they can "stay competitive." Fossil fuel subsidies currently outstrip renewable subsidies by about 2 to 1; this, when renewable energy actually needs taxpayer help precisely because the fossil fuel corporations are so big they can stamp out alternatives. And if you've attended the fact that our West Coast is presently on fire, you know we need those alternatives post-haste. Hence Food and Water Action helps you tell your Congressfolk to support sane energy policy by passing the End Polluter Welfare Act.

Action: concerning credit reporting and gun violence.

US PIRG helps you tell your Congressfolk to ban negative credit reports during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because over 40 million good Americans lost their jobs and still need to put food on the table! Ideally, credit reports measure how well you manage money, but who's managing money well during this pandemic? Only the rich, and it's a lot easier to balance the checkbook when money's coming in by the boatload. As it happens, this pandemic seems to be prompting a lot of mistakes on credit reports -- compare the number of credit report mistake complaints filed over the last five months with the number of similar complaints filed during the same five months of 2019 and you find they've almost doubled. Stupid or evil, who cares? The end result is the same: good Americans can't get loans and can't get jobs, through no damn fault of their own -- or, more precisely, because of the incompetence and venality of our President. Don't blame good Americans for his bad works, that's what I say. Even if the "free" market demands it.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International helps you tell your Congressfolk to fund community anti-gun violence programs. To the tune of $150 million, which ain't that much in the context of a $4 trillion-plus federal budget. And note well that "community anti-gun violence programs" is not the same thing as "banning handguns." If you know someone who can't tell the difference, well, you may want to leave their instruction to God. We can only be so reasonable, after all! By "community anti-gun violence programs," we mean direct intervention and outreach on streets and in hospitals, and these ideas have worked in the past, when they've been well-funded, of course. And again: $150 million on one hand, $4 trillion on the other; if you can save lives and rescue souls with a mere four one-thousandths of one percent of our federal budget, you do it. And, you know, funding intervention and outreach is also a job creation scheme -- unless you're one of those benighted souls who thinks working for our government somehow doesn't count as a job.

Around the table: in which a Presidential offspring makes less sense than an AI language generator.

Our President told Bob Woodward that he knew COVID-19 would be profoundly deadly but told Americans differently (i.e., "it's going to be fine") because "I don't want to create a panic." But that's not leadership -- leadership would have sounded more like this is going to be bad, but we'll fight our way through it and we'll come out on top. And it would have reduced "panic," though I seriously doubt it would have saved very many lives, since "show(ing) strength" only goes so far if you don't actually know what you're doing. Don't expect this to be a Damascus moment for your Confederate flag-flying neighbor, though. We must leave their instruction to God.

In a peripherally-related note, Tucker Carlson claims that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) -- who has spent years positioning himself as a staunch ally of our President -- brokered all those interviews with Bob Woodward which are garnering our President so much deservedly negative publicity now. But only weak people and drama addicts look for someone to blame all the time. And, ah, Mr. Graham is up for re-election this year, in an unexpectedly tight race, and now South Carolina's Presidential votaries might be thinking he's not a "real conservative" (particularly since he's also lately bashed QAnon).

The putatively more capable Presidential son won't condemn Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse, saying "(w)e all do stupid things at 17." OK, everyone who did something stupid when they were 17, raise your hand! Yeah, that's my hand up, too. Now everyone who shot three protestors when they were 17, raise your hand! Not so many hands now, eh? And thus we are reminded, yet again, that money can't buy a clue.

Having heard that Americas PAC radio ad about Biden family finances, I remind you that ProPublica covered the long story of how Jim Biden has benefited financially from being Joe Biden's brother. Of course, our President has done far, far worse than anything ProPublica relates in their reporting, but then that's the whole point: every time you bring up our President's obvious corruption, his votaries say "well, what about the Biden family?" And though "well what about" is what people say when they can't win the argument on the merits, his votaries don't care about persuasion so much as shouting you down.

Finally, AI language generator GPT-3 writes an op-ed at The Guardian to reassure us that artificial intelligence isn't such a bad thing. The op-ed is actually a human-edited melange of eight op-eds, and the human editors basically told it what to say. Even so, I still think we have less to fear from AI than from greedy/stupid people making AI do more of our work than it should. Anyone who's ever dealt with the self-checkout kiosk at the supermarket or been disappointed yet again by autocorrect knows what I'm talking about.

Action: concerning the HEROES Act and social media.

Word on the street is that Sen. McConnell (E-KY) plans to start voting on his "skinny" COVID-19 relief bill -- so now's a pretty good time to call your Senators and tell them to pass H.R. 6800, the HEROES Act. There's no need to humor Republicans who want to look like they're "doing something" about tens of millions unemployed and a thousand-plus deaths every single day from COVID-19 -- they can just pass the HEROES Act, which our House passed almost four months ago and which would extend enhanced unemployment benefits, expand COVID-19 testing and tracing, help out states and localities suffering from a shrinking tax base, fund our Post Office so it can better handle all the votes-by-mail it's going to have to deliver, and issue another round of checks bigger than the ones we got from the CARES Act. Really, there's no need to reinvent the wheel here; our House already passed the HEROES Act, and all our Senators have to do is pass it. Then our President has to sign it! But let's take this one step at a time.

You remember the Burmese military's genocide of its Rohingya Muslim population? All that village-burning, murder, and rape, plus 800,000 refugees fleeing to Bangladesh? Facebook played a big role in helping folks spread lies about and threats at the Rohingya while all that was going on -- and now won't hand over information that the Republic of Gambia has filed suit in our federal courts to get. Facebook must think they're too big for the Republic of Gambia! Or, perhaps, Facebook thinks its own apologies about enabling the genocide are enough, apologies I'm sure the families of the dead find very persuasive. Actually, Facebook claims the requests are too broad -- why, they're making requests for info all the way back to 2012! When, ah, the Burmese military also killed a lot of Rohingya. These killers said what they wanted to do out loud on Facebook, so the Republic of Gambia might be able to nail them in court -- but only if we speak out! So Sum of Us helps you tell Facebook to stop enabling the ongoing coverup of genocide in Burma.

Around the table: in which a Senatorial staffer comes up with a novel way to look at health care affordability.

The VOTER FRAUDZ IZ REALZ!!!!! crowd must have been quite aroused at the news that one thousand "double-voters" may face charges in Georgia, but they ought to chill. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said a thousand Georgians face "investigation" because he probably already knows he won't be able to prosecute anywhere near that many (and n.b. that I said prosecute, not convict!). We don't know, for example, how many Georgia voters canceled their absentee ballot once they voted at the polling booth, which is perfectly legal, and we also don't know how many of that number filed a provisional ballot because the state couldn't verify whether it had received their absentee ballot yet, which is also perfectly legal. So the real number of prosecutions (which, again, are not convictions!) will almost certainly have fewer digits than the number Mr. Raffensperger announced on Tuesday.

Our President has apparently figured out that saying Pentagon officials "want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy" will not only a) divert attention from coverage of his stupid dead-soldiers-are-losers remark and b) snatch up some anti-war voters who aren't satisfied with the idea of voting for Joe Biden! I mean, I can't entirely blame them, and if you've ever met a Ron Paul fan who voted for Mr. Obama because the Republican alternative wasn't adequately Paulist, you'll know our President isn't being dumb here. Still, these Pentagon officials are the ones he put in there, and a man shouldn't get to slam defense spending after doing all that bragging about increasing defense spending. Also, too, we're still fighting wars all around the world.

You know how I say it's not a Congressional staffer's job to challenge us when we express our will? Well, at least one staffer in the office of Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) didn't get the memo, telling a three-time cancer survivor that no, you shouldn't be able to get health care if you can't afford it -- "(j)ust like if you want to go to the store and buy a new dress shirt, if I can’t afford that dress shirt, I don’t get to get it." Because needing chemotherapy is "just like" getting a new shirt! Ain't no apology from Sen. Tillis gonna wash that stain out -- even if this somehow isn't a case of like hiring like, you don't hire staffers that clueless because you just don't know what you're getting.

Our President adds 20 names to his list of possible Supreme Court nominees. His 2016 list definitely helped him win, and even now, rank-and-file Republicans who find him obnoxious-or-worse will more likely hold their nose if they know they're getting a Supreme Court Justice out of it, and that's true even if they've never heard of Amy Coney Barrett or Amul Thapar. Our President has challenged Joe Biden to put out a similar list, but that could backfire on him -- why wouldn't a list of folks like Goodwin Liu or Leah Ward Sears galvanize the liberals who find Mr. Biden wanting? Perhaps he's counting on Mr. Biden deciding putting out a list is beneath him, which isn't a bad calculation.

Finally, former Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman cuts an ad endorsing Republican Susan Collins in the Maine Senate race, saying "I'm a lifelong Democrat but I put my country first." Because if there's anything our country needs, it's another fake "moderate" who never deviates from the party line when it matters and who only preaches "bipartisanship" when it means caving to Republicans! Seriously, though, let Republicans light $400,000 on fire hoping anyone still looks to Joe Lieberman (or Susan Collins!) as a beacon of anything. In fact, is there a way we can get them to spend more money on that ad? And maybe even spend it on TV?

Action: concerning good House bills, big telecom shenanigans, and water conservation.

Happy Wednesday, good peoples! Now call your Senators and tell them to pass H.R. 1, the For the People Act; H.R. 2, the Moving Forward Act; H.R. 3, the Lower Drug Costs Now Act; H.R. 4, the Voting Rights Advancement Act; H.R. 5, the Equality Act; H.R. 6, the American Dream and Promise Act; H.R. 7, the Paycheck Fairness Act; H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act; H.R. 397, the Butch Lewis Act; H.R. 535, the PFAS Action Act; H.R. 582, the Raise the Wage Act; H.R. 986, the Protecting Americans with Pre-Existing Conditions Act; H.R. 1146, the Arctic Cultural and Coastal Plain Protection Act; H.R. 1373, the Grand Canyon Centennial Act; H.R. 1644, the Save the Internet Act; H.R. 2214, the NO BAN Act; H.R. 2474, the PRO Act; H.R. 2513, the Corporate Transparency Act; H.R. 2722, the SAFE Act; H.R. 5035, the Television Viewer Protection Act; H.R. 7120, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act; and H.J. Res. 79, which would remove the expiration date from the original Equal Rights Amendment. These bills would make America a more perfect union -- by raising working family wages, protecting voting rights, and restoring internet freedom, among other good works -- which must be why Sen. McConnell (E-KY) refuses to allow a vote on any of them! But he ain't the boss of us! And our Senators need to know that -- but they'll only know it if we speak out.

Meanwhile, Charter Communications, the second-largest cable corporation in America, has lately petitioned our Federal Communications Commission (or FCC) for permission to institute data caps! In the middle of a pandemic, while millions of kids are learning from home, no less! And Charter pledged not to institute data caps if our FCC green-lit its merger with Time Warner Cable, which should remind us how much a corporation's "word" is worth. In a typically whiny retort, Charter spokeshacks say that since other corporations get to do it, they should get to do it, too, but nobody should get to do it, because it doesn't serve any real purpose except to make money. I'm old enough to remember when our government forced corporations to serve customers, but now our government pretends that's never an option, as they let big telecom corporations jack up prices for ever-worsening service. But we don't have to take that! Free Press helps you tell our FCC to reject Charter's request to institute data caps. After all, this is the year it could cost your kids at school -- and it may not be the last year that happens, either.

In other news, our Administration has proposed loosening showerhead water efficiency standards, by redefining "showerhead" so that individual parts of the showerhead can count as a complete showerhead! And thus the entire showerhead can waste more water while still nominally complying with the standards! Our President complained a little over a month ago that showerheads don't put out enough water to help him make his hair "perfect," and while we shouldn't give one rat's hind-quarter about whatever our President's hair issues are, we should also note that we're staring at a future with a lot more drought in it, and appliances which actually help us conserve water will also help us deal with that drought. There's that word "conserve" again, the root word of that other word, "conservative," which a lot of reactionary rageheads pretend to be these days without understanding that it's really not all about yelling and screaming and getting attention and pissing off liberals. Hence Penn Environment helps you tell our Department of Energy to reject its proposed plan to loosen showerhead regulations.

Around the table: in which we count the cost of the "war on terror."

In a surprise announcement at least one energy industry figure described as an "ambush," our President declares he'll extend moratoria on offshore drilling off the Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina coasts to 10 years. Obviously he decided that "delaying" a decision on such matters until after the election (his stated position a few months ago) wasn't enough! Of course he's doing this to get votes, but I love good works so much I hardly care why people do them -- and it is interesting, isn't it, that he's perceived that banning offshore drilling is the popular move? If this heralds a new era were politicians stop trying to convince us we actually want shit sandwiches, I won't complain.

Caroline Chen at ProPublica explains why America needs a "coherent strategy" for asymptomatic testing for COVID-19, but I trust most folks don't actually need that explanation, once they learn that you can have, and can spread, COVID-19 without having any symptoms, and that a patchwork of local standards for testing doesn't do enough to contain a pandemic. The only people who need to have it explained to them, apparently, are the super-geniuses in our Administration, headed by a President who only wants to get re-elected and a Vice-President who caused a mini-HIV epidemic in a rural Indiana county while Governor because he was too good for needle exchange programs.

House Oversight Committee will investigate allegations that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy pressured employees at his former corporation to donate to Republicans, then reimbursed said employees with bonuses. None of that is particularly legal -- and certainly none of it is moral! -- though I suppose it's possible Mr. DeJoy accomplished all that in a way that would withstand prosecution. That's a hell of a thing to bring to the Pearly Gates, though. (And let's think about this kind of thing when we think about "law and order," shall we?)

A friendly reminder: "Democrat states" are not, in fact, trying to "hurt their economies" just to deny this President re-election -- in fact, more likely this President has hurt our economy trying to restart it before controlling the pandemic, as the numbers of infections and deaths skyrocketed after states started to reopen. If you've come to hear everything he says as waaah waaah waaah everything is about me, well, you're not alone.

Rochester, NY Police Chief and both Deputy Chiefs suddenly retire several days after police shooting of Daniel Prude in March comes to light. But not without a fight, as the Police Chief in question says he won't "not sit idly by while outside entities attempt to destroy my character," not long after deciding to literally sit idly by. The last thing anyone wants to hear is a cop whine, but then our President hasn't been setting a good example with that, has he?

Finally, Brown University's Costs of War Project estimates (conservatively!) that our wars since 9.11 have displaced 37 million people -- a figure exceeding the number of folks displaced by all wars since 1900 excepting World War II. I was about to say our "war on terror" displaced 37 million folks, but the Costs of War Project did not count folks displaced in minor theaters of said war in Africa, so our "war on terror" has likely wrought a higher cost than that. A cost borne almost entirely by other people! Sometimes, despite your commitment to optimism, you lose a little spring in your step, and contemplating that the "war on terror" is almost 20 years old is one of those times. Thanks, Bush!

Action: concerning the HEROES Act, our Post Office, DACA, bad public servants, and taxing the rich.

Congress comes back to work today, so take a minute to boo them, and then get on the phone with your Senators and tell them to pass both H.R. 6800, the HEROES Act, and H.R. 8015, the Delivering for America Act. You've heard that "Democrats blocked the Republican pandemic stimulus bill"? Well, that sure ain't the whole story, since our House passed the HEROES Act, a pretty good pandemic stimulus bill, over three months ago. It funds testing and tracing, extends enhanced unemployment benefits, and issues another round of stimulus checks, among other good works -- but it doesn't make three-martini lunches fully tax-deductible, which is apparently a sticking point with Republicans. I wish I were kidding about that! Our House has also passed the Delivering for America Act, which would reverse all the stupid changes our new Postmaster General has made to our Post Office so it'll run a lot worse than it currently does. If Senate Republicans won't do the work we've called them to do, well, we've got to keep calling them -- for as long as it takes. Tools for finding your Senators' phone numbers are, as always, in the upper right-hand corner of this page (or, if you're on a cellphone, the bottom of this page).

Meanwhile, our Supreme Court struck down our President's clumsily unlawful attempt to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (or DACA) program -- hate to pile on, but our Court called our President's actions "arbitrary and capricious," and it must have pained the notoriously literal John Roberts to say that -- but our U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (or USCIS) still won't accept new DACA applicants, in open defiance of our Court's ruling. How likely is it that our Administration just can't find any folks who came here as children who just don't meet DACA's criteria? Our USCIS also plans to renew existing DACA statuses for only one year instead of two, just to make DREAMers' lives harder. They already wouldn't recognize the countries to which they'd be deported, and had literally no choice in coming here, so I guess our Administration says what's a little more cruelty? Hence the Daily Kos Liberation League helps you tell our Administration to stop defying the rule of law and accept DACA applicants again. Shame we have to tell this Administration to follow the law, but such is our lot in life.

On a related topic, Daily Kos helps you tell your Senators to reject the nomination of Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf to be that department's permanent Secretary. As "permanent" as such things are with this Administration, amirite? Our President loves circumventing the rule of law by appointing "acting" department heads -- and according to our Government Accountability Office (or GAO), he doesn't even do it lawfully, bypassing less "loyal" civil servants to elevate the ones he wants. And this is quite telling, since Republicans have held the Senate during this entire Administration, and have eagerly rubber-stamped his judicial nominees, for example. But Mr. Wolf has thoroughly demonstrated his unworthiness for the job over the last nine-plus months, perhaps most notably by sending unmarked and armed officers to protests and abducting protestors off the street. Perhaps one day he'll find out what everyone else finds out -- that slavish loyalty to our President rarely goes unpunished. But why wait? His spiritual arc is no more important than anyone else's, and certainly no more important than the people's will, which we ought to express posthaste.

Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell your Congressfolk to pass H.R. 8020/S. 4490, the Make Billionaires Pay Act, then Americans for Tax Fairness still helps you do that. We all know by now that the biggest "winners" of this pandemic have been billionaires, whose wealth has grown by at least $732 billion over the last six months, and while you may be tempted to say right-place-right-time about Jeff Bezos (since ordering stuff online has become even more of a lifeline for good Americans than it was before), fact is billionaires don't need that damn much money. No, they don't "create jobs" with that money -- they hoard that money! Just like you or I would do! That's why we have laws to compel them to part with some of that money, and the Make Billionaires Pay Act would hardly make any of them destitute -- it'd put a 60% tax of billionaire wealth earned since March, which would leave 40%, and as we know, 40% of a crapload is still a crapload. The bill would redirect the money toward good Americans' out-of-pocket health care expenses -- which we know have shot up, because tens of millions of Americans lost their jobs (and thus any health insurance they might have had). So let's get to it.

Around the table: in which we confront, as usual, big jobs, bad arguments, and corrupt losers.

Let's start with some good news: U.S. District Court judge strikes down another Administration attempt to gut the Affordable Care Act's protections against sex stereotyping. Judge Boasberg left many of our Administration's nefarious attempts to injure gay/transgender folk in place, but he may well have had in mind Justice Gorsuch's recent ruling that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects gay/transgender folk from discrimination in the workplace, even if this isn't a workplace issue per se -- I would expect any law or regulation with the word "sex" in it, these days, to come under similar scrutiny now.

Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (or ACLED) study finds that 93% of all Black Lives Matter protests this summer have been peaceful, with "no serious harm to people or damage to property." And, ah, who's causing the most harm and damage at the other 7%? Law enforcement (who use force "more often than not" at BLM protests, imagine that) and "non-state actors" (read "Nazi wannabes"). So I guess either you won't see this story on Fox News -- or, perhaps, the Fox News guest who tries to discuss it gets shouted over by all their "fair" and "balanced" hosts.

Jamie Galbraith at The Intercept says "Rebuilding the Economy Will Require Joe Biden to Think Very Differently Than 2009." "The Covid-19 pandemic has changed our economy for the long term...The decision, by millions of anxious Americans each acting in their own best interest — to eat and play at home, to save more and spend less, to protect their health and to hang on for as long as possible — creates an economic problem that cannot be palliated by money alone." Thus "(s)omething else must be done" to get our economy going -- and that something, gratifyingly, includes mobilizing, "as if in a wartime effort," both capital and work toward "a new set of purposes," which include "sustainable energy, mitigation of climate change, public health, and the reconstruction of life itself around safe and sustainable patterns of activity." But I wished Barack Obama had done all of that in 2009 (even said so then!), so when I hear Mr. Biden wants to "build back better," I'm no surer than Mr. Galbraith that he really means it.

Igor Derysh at Salon informs us that a Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco study finds that recent "wage growth" is almost entirely the result of a crap-ton of low-wage jobs going away thanks to this pandemic. Stick a pin in that, for when right-wingers try to tell you the economy's not so bad because THE WAGEZ HAVE GONEZ UPZ!!!!! I mean, you'd like to think people pay attention to their own paychecks, particularly the disappearance thereof, but true believers can tell themselves almost anything. (And, ah, hate to pile on, but you've noticed that the black unemployment rate our President wouldn't shut up about has skyrocketed lately? As they say, last ones hired, first ones fired.)

Finally, John Pierce, the attorney defending Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse resigns from legal foundation after media reports that a good chunk of the foundation's money has flowed right into Mr. Pierce's own financially-floundering law firm. A fellow lawyer at the foundations pshaws it, suggesting that nobody's perfect, but "imperfect" ain't the same as corrupt. Mr. Pierce, you may recall, also suggested that Mr. Rittenhouse has helped begin "(a) Second American Revolution against Tyranny"; maybe when you shoot three people at a peaceful protest, this is all you can get for a lawyer.

Penny Rants for Sunday, September 6, 2020: concerning right-wing violence and "suckers" and "losers."

Our "liberal" media finally get around to covering the armed right-wing violence at a Democrat-sponsored voter registration drive in Tyler, TX over a month ago -- but even now they can't get it right! Even with an extra month of lead time! Luckily Dorothee Benz at FAIR helps us sift through all the lousy reporting, where "fights break out" and "disturbances happen" without any apparent causes and "people on both sides" are always to blame, even in "liberal" media reports like the Washington Post report of August 27 documenting eight incidents of right-wing violence and one incident of left-wing violence. Ms. Benz also reminds us (because, sadly, we need reminding!) that "privatized violence aimed at popular democratic demands is a hallmark of right-wing authoritarianism," and we can rather easily document how this trend's operating right here in America right now. One more thing: given the truck caravans that have rolled through protests across America (not just in Portland), how long before the pick-up truck stops being a symbol of hard work and starts being a symbol of racism?

Speaking of right-wing violence at protests, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) opines that infamous militia member Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot three protestors in Kenosha over a week ago, actually showed "incredible restraint." If you wonder why someone shows up to a protest armed, or have seen him shoot two protestors plainly trying to disarm him, you'll be surprised, but let's let Mr. Massie explain further: "(h)e didn't empty a magazine into a crowd." What a low bar to set! He "showed restraint" because he only shot three people instead of a hundred! I'm old enough to remember when conservatives demanded a lot more of us (and each other) than that! Mr. Massie would have earned more sympathy if he'd pointed out that Mr. Rittenhouse is only 17 and shouldn't be tried as an adult; instead, the man who wouldn't ban semiautomatics because someone-somewhere can turn a rifle into a semiautomatic seems, again, only to care about protecting guns. No, not even "gun rights" -- as Russell Kirk used to say, rights have responsibilities.

What's the worst thing about our President calling dead soldiers "suckers" and "losers"? He's wrong! I think soldiers who die at war are generally the best ones, and their officers more likely just figured out how to get others to die in their place. All of which means I'm not surprised by our President's remarks, for who is better at screwing other people over just to protect himself than he? Here's what surprises me: he's been way too slow to portray these remarks as anti-war -- they would be pretty damn clumsy anti-war statements, true, but not irredeemably so, and they might also get that sliver of the anti-war vote he's going to need to get re-elected. He seems content with calling everyone a liar and speculating about who might have "betrayed" him, as any drama king would do. So, when our President said all the generals were stupid, his votaries could tell themselves he wasn't talking about the rank and file, but now that he's said the rank and file are "suckers" and "losers," how will they respond? I kid, of course -- they just say whatever makes them think they're owning the liberals.

Action: concerning whistleblowers, immigration, and our Post Office.

Our Securities and Exchange Commission (or SEC) planned to vote on regulatory changes that would cripple vital whistleblower protections -- but cancelled the vote shortly before it would have taken place, which is what they usually do when they don't have enough pro-evil public comments. The SEC's proposed changes would have arbitrarily capped whistleblower rewards, hampered whistleblower reporting, and prevented our SEC from acting in certain legitimate circumstances; what would comments in favor of these changes look like? Please, SEC, shield banksters from the investors they try to screw over? But the important thing is there have never been enough comments favoring the changes, or else our SEC would have pushed through these changes last year, when they cancelled a vote on them after getting over 100,000 public comments opposing them. So let's keep up the pressure! The National Whistleblower Center helps you tell our SEC to reject its own proposed changes to its whistleblower program.

Meanwhile, defense contracting corporation MVM has made several hundred million dollars from our Bureau of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (or ICE) to detain over 100 migrants, with many children reportedly among their number. Apparently the best way to disappear these folks is to put them in a privately-held hotel, since detaining them in one of our notorious concentration camps would create, at least, a paper trail. And MVM says its workers can handle abuse reports, but their contract says they don't actually have to do anything about them! What would you say, if your money paid for all of this? Oh, wait, it did -- we don't fund defense contracts with bake sales, after all. And don't be put off by the notion that it's only a hundred migrants, because they'll do it to a thousand or a million if we don't stop them now. Hence we wield the Big Stick of Bad PR against the weakest link in this particular chain, as Sum of Us helps you tell Best Western to end its participation in this ongoing disgrace.

Finally, upon learning that our U.S. Postal Services Board of Governors Chair Robert M. Duncan also just so happens to direct a $130 million Super PAC aligned with Sen. Mitch McConnell (E-KY), Progress American helps you demand that Mr. Duncan resign his post on the USPS Board of Governors. The rot didn't start with Mr. DeJoy, it turns out! Is it against the law for Mr. Duncan to do both jobs? I'll bet it's not; folks like Mitch McConnell don't break the law so much as change the law so that it turns law-breaking into law-following! And your right-wing neighbor is no doubt already saying and you're surprised? But the fact that something's no surprise doesn't automatically make it tolerable! Time was nobody would serve in our government and run a campaign arm at the same time simply because it made people look corrupt! But our leaders care less and less about that every day -- and, sadly, so do many Americans, only because all the corruption has made them dizzy. Still, duty is duty.

Action: concerning Social Security, clean air and clean water, and life-saving drugs.

If you've missed previous opportunities to tell your Congressfolk to block our President's attempt to raid Social Security and Medicare funding through his payroll tax holiday Executive Order, then Social Security Works still helps you do that. You'd be surprised to learn how many of our President's votaries excuse this raid by saying our government has raided Social Security for years! That's how far people have to go to defend this President -- by essentially asserting that two wrongs do make a right! Also, too, they're wrong -- if we do nothing, and the economy doesn't grow (which sure seems unlikely, regardless of what's happening now!), then Social Security will be able to pay out full benefits until 2035 and close to 80% of its benefits thereafter. But if our President gets his way, and repeals the payroll tax entirely? Social Security's disability trust fund will be empty by the middle of next year, and the retirement/survivors' trust fund will be empty by 2023. That's because taxes pay for services. And the only people who don't understand that are the people who must cling to this President no matter what.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania residents, take note: our state legislators still push a pro-pollution agenda, this time with HB 2025/SB 950, which would establish the procedure by which the state could establish a carbon tax. Read Sec. 4(b)(3) of the bill and you'll notice a theme -- the bill would only allow our DEP to consider the economic "harm" a carbon tax would supposedly do to big energy corporations which don't have the foresight to switch to renewables; the bill would pointedly not permit our DEP to consider the increased health care costs from pollution (which are economic impacts), and the bill would also pointedly not let our DEP consider the deleterious impacts of climate change from continued fossil fuel emissions (which are also economic impacts!). Now's a good time to note that I care little for carbon taxes -- I prefer good old-fashioned regulation, which has always worked when done by people who give a crap -- but if the Commonwealth chooses to go the carbon tax route, then certainly they should do it right. Hence the Environmental Defense Fund helps you tell your PA state legislator to reject HB 2025/SB 950 and actually take steps to protect our air, our water, and our health.

Finally, big pharma corporation Gilead, which is developing a putatively promising COVID-19 treatment called remdesivir, says it'll "give away" 1.5 million doses -- but that's not the act of generosity you might think it is! After all, a sick person will need more than one dose -- Gilead's own website recommends five- and ten-day treatment courses, depending on the severity of your symptoms -- and Gilead still plans to charge upwards of $2,000 for a drug they developed with almost $80 million of taxpayer money, i.e., your money. Set aside the immorality of charging four figures for a life-saving drug: they needed our money to make it! Which gives us some say over what they do, right? Hence Color of Change helps you tell Gilead to give all of its COVID-19 medicine away, if it works. Why would a right-winger object to that? Well, HOWZ DOEZ THEYZ MAKEZ TEH PROFITZ!!!!!, I suppose (short answer: why must they?), but also fear -- fear that if we don't let Gilead do exactly what it wants, we'll all get sick and die. Fears like that are real, of course, but letting such fears dominate our lives is profoundly un-American. We're not hostages, after all -- we're free people.

Action: concerning financial predators, your private data, and pot legalization.

As states move to cap payday loan rates, yet another "acting" head of an Administration bureau has come up with a scheme to circumvent such caps: it would turn a blind eye to payday lenders as they launder loans through big banks. Such cleverness! Unless you think, as I do, that it's only clever if it does our civilization good. Releasing payday lenders from regulatory "burdens" so they can continue to gouge working Americans with 300% loans ain't good, particularly as tens of millions of Americans still can't regain the jobs they lost due to the pandemic. It's not like payday lenders can't make money at levels like 36% annually -- and frankly I'd set such caps a lot lower than that! -- but our Administration seriously believes that any regulation that actually helps Americans is a profound evil, because only money-making bosses matter. Too harsh? The truth is always harsh, but never too harsh, if you're a grown-up. Hence Americans for Financial Reform helps you tell our Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to reject its proposal to let payday lenders circumvent strong protections.

Meanwhile, big private equity corporation Blackstone wants to buy Ancestry, one of the corporations that'll read your DNA to determine your genealogical heritage. And you already see the problem with that, right? It's bad enough that one corporation has all that data and our government can't or won't make laws protecting it from abuse or theft, but having a bankster buy up all that data is like another whole suitcase full of bad. And what would prevent a hedge fund from selling your data to the highest bidder? Certainly not their ethics or morals! I mean, the individuals who run Blackstone will pretend to be shocked, shocked! that anyone would ever think such a thing of them, but they're not stupid. Hence Demand Progress helps you tell your Congressfolk and federal regulators to block the proposed Blackstone acquisition of Ancestry. Maybe someone should tell our President that Blackstone's CEO said he was stupid! Of course I don't know if he did -- Blackstone's executives and I don't exactly move in the same circles -- but it's not exactly unlikely, is it? And it seems to get results.

Finally, House Democratic leadership may hold a vote on H.R. 3884, the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (or MORE) Act, later on this month, so Drug Policy Alliance helps you tell your Congressfolk to legalize pot and start to repair the damage caused by prohibition by passing the MORE Act. Yeah, I used to think legalizing marijuana was a bridge too far -- though I've always felt putting it on Schedule I of the Drug Enforcement Act was ridiculous, since it's nowhere near as dangerous as drugs like heroin -- but then a few states did it on their own, and they didn't exactly fall apart, did they? No, they did not. The MORE Act would remove pot from Drug Enforcement Act scheduling entirely, and would invest more money into rebuilding the communities that have been ravaged by "war on drugs" policing. "Ravaged" isn't too strong a word, not when you have it from Richard Nixon's own counsel, John Ehrlichman, that the "war on drugs" was never really about drugs, but about oppressing anti-war and black protestors without appearing to violate their rights. And that's a legacy we ought to let go.

Action: concerning good House bills, public land stewardship, and making billionaires pay.

Happy Tuesday, good peoples! Now call your Senators and tell them to pass H.R. 1, the For the People Act; H.R. 2, the Moving Forward Act; H.R. 3, the Lower Drug Costs Now Act; H.R. 4, the Voting Rights Advancement Act; H.R. 5, the Equality Act; H.R. 6, the American Dream and Promise Act; H.R. 7, the Paycheck Fairness Act; H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act; H.R. 397, the Butch Lewis Act; H.R. 535, the PFAS Action Act; H.R. 582, the Raise the Wage Act; H.R. 986, the Protecting Americans with Pre-Existing Conditions Act; H.R. 1146, the Arctic Cultural and Coastal Plain Protection Act; H.R. 1373, the Grand Canyon Centennial Act; H.R. 1644, the Save the Internet Act; H.R. 2214, the NO BAN Act; H.R. 2474, the PRO Act; H.R. 2513, the Corporate Transparency Act; H.R. 2722, the SAFE Act; H.R. 5035, the Television Viewer Protection Act; H.R. 7120, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act; and H.J. Res. 79, which would remove the expiration date from the original Equal Rights Amendment. Yeah, give them the whole list! Senatorial staffers take down your will and communicate it to their bosses -- and then their bosses do the will of their bosses, i.e., us. At least, that's how it'd work in a sane and moral society. Until then, we must insist on sanity and morality -- again and again and again.

Meanwhile, Wild Earth Guardians helps you tell Interior Secretary Bernhardt to remove William Perry Pendley from his job as Acting Director of our Bureau of Land Management. That's right, another of our President's infamous "acting" officers, so installed as to bypass the Senatorial confirmation process -- a process our President is so confident will go his way that he is withdrawing Mr. Pendley's nomination to be the real Director. So he "bows" to our Senators' will, but flouts it by keeping him there in an "acting" capacity! Putting Mr. Pendley in charge of the Bureau of Land Management is fox-henhouse territory to begin with -- Mr. Pendley is yet another Administration leader who believes his own department shouldn't exist, plus he professes to be an adherent of the "shoot, shovel, and shut up" way of dealing with having endangered species on your land. But his numerous denigrations of non-whites and immigrants? Well, that's just special sauce for this Administration. Maybe we can make it a PR nightmare for Mr. Bernhardt, who's Mr. Pendley's boss. Particularly since we're really the boss of both of them.

Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell your Congressfolk to pass H.R. 8020/S. 4490, the Make Billionaires Pay Act, then Americans for Tax Fairness still helps you do that. As the pandemic rages and our economy craters, billionaires make out like bandits, so to speak, their wealth increasing by over $5 billion every day, and if that fact doesn't testify to how little billionaires have to work to make their money, nothing does. We'd all like to make money more efficiently, but this state of affairs isn't efficient if it's not doing our civilization any good. Can you even imagine what could you do with $5 billion? $5 billion wouldn't just pay off your mortgage, it'd pay off 10,000 mortgages -- if those mortgages averaged half a million dollars! You don't even know 10,000 people! No, not even on Facebook! So putting $5 billion in the hands of our richest Americans every day surely doesn't benefit the masses of Americans struggling with, say, health care debt. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Make Billionaires Pay Act would actually remedy that to some degree.

Action: concerning the HEROES Act, our Post Office, and endangered species.

Happy Monday, good peoples! Now would be a good time to call your Senators and tell them to pass H.R. 6800, the HEROES Act, and to reject the suite of bills the Republicans call the HEALS Act. The American people continue to clamor for relief from the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting recession, and the HEROES Act (which our House passed over three months ago!) would give a lot of that relief, not just in extended unemployment benefits and additional stimulus checks but also in the form of COVID-19 testing and tracing. Also, the HEROES Act would extend a moratorium on evictions, since putting people out on the street could cause more COVID-19 spikes. Republican proposals, meanwhile, would attack Social Security, hand out more corporate welfare, and expand three-martini lunch tax breaks; it's safe to say the American people aren't clamoring for these. Don't get hung up on "Democrats and Republicans negotiating an agreement." We're suppose to tell them what we want and they're supposed to do it, and how can Senators negotiate, anyway, without hearing our counsel?

While you have your Senators on the phone, you can also tell them to pass H.R. 8015, the Delivering for America Act, which would roll back the many changes Postmaster General DeJoy has made to U.S. Postal Service operations, changes which have resulted not only in mail delivery delays but also fears that our Post Office won't be able to handle an influx of votes-by-mail, since a lot of folks would rather not risk dying of COVID-19 at the ballot box. Some folks say we're "snowflakes" for wanting to vote without dying of an awful disease! But these folks get their own "courage" largely by getting drunk with denial and rage, so why listen to them? The Delivering for America Act also delivers emergency funding for our Post Office, which still suffers under the Congressional mandate to pre-fund its health and pension benefits 75 years in advance. Those who want our Post Office to run "like a corporation" should note that no corporation in America has do to that! (If you want an email contact tool for this alert, Penn PIRG provides one.)

Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell our Administration to reject its latest plan to weaken endangered species protections, then Penn Environment still helps you do that. As you may recall, our Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed removing species from protections against development if they relocate to a new habitat. Thing is, a species might be endangered precisely because we've developed too much of its natural habitat already, meaning that in order to save the species we have to relocate it to a larger area; thus our FWS would essentially penalizing endangered species for living in a place we've basically overrun, and then prevent them from getting re-established elsewhere! I really do wish folks would use their cleverness to do good things. One could hope that a federal judge will see the inherent contradiction in this rule, and find that it prevents proper enforcement of the Endangered Species Act -- but we've got to help a judge see it with our public comments.

Action: concerning pollution, government spying, police foundations, and bad media.

On the occasion of yet more wildfires in California, MoveOn helps you tell California Gov. Newsom to stop approving new drilling and fracking leases in the Golden State. A lot of folks say there ain't a dime's worth of difference between Democrats and Republicans, and while that's not exactly true, it doesn't exactly help that California's Democratic Governor, nominally an environmentalist, lets all this oil and gas drilling happen, when making climate change worse is an obvious side effect. Having no clean water is another obvious side effect, since hydrofracturing uses a lot of water -- in a state that frequently experiences drought, no less! In a state already appropriating a lot of water for agricultural uses, no less! So, to sum: the solution to burning lungs, brown sky, ashes falling like rain, and so little water they tell you not to flush the toilet is what? More oil and gas drilling? How about more solar and wind, eh? Last I looked, California got plenty of sun, and you might as well use the resources at hand, rather than dig for more just so a few fossil fuel executives can gild the plumbing in their 19th vacation homes.

Meanwhile, as good Americans continue to protest the shooting of Jacob Blake by Kenosha, WI police -- and as said police seemed strangely uninterested in the militia member who shot several protestors in the middle of the week -- M Power Change helps you tell your Congressfolk to protect protestors from FBI surveillance, intimidation, and criminalization. We've told our FBI not to do these things many times, but obviously they think admitting that right-wingers commit terrorist acts is a good enough reason to let them continue to harass black protestors, like they've been doing since time immemorial. But admitting that right-wingers commit terrorism -- you know, like the thing I described in the first sentence of this paragraph! -- is not some great gift to us (it's rather like saying water is wet), and I'm old enough to remember when right-wingers threw a hissy fit over our DHS saying the same thing during the first Obama term. And if you'll refer to the first sentence of this paragraph again, you'll wonder why law enforcement spies on black protestors but seems so helpless when some kid kills a few of them. People have rights even if you don't like them, after all.

And while we're on this subject: if you've missed previous opportunities to tell big corporations to stop funding police foundations, then Police Piggy Bank still helps you do that. It's well past time that police foundations came under some scrutiny -- and it's also well past time the corporations that fund them came under some scrutiny, since these corporations are now falling all over themselves to say how much they love black folks. We-the-people have little-to-no oversight over police foundations, since they're private; certainly we don't have the oversight we have over public police budgets! And police foundations don't typically use this money to have barbecues with the good folks in their neighborhoods -- they more typically use it to buy military weapons they then use on the good folks protesting their atrocities. At least big corporations can be swayed by the Big Stick of Bad PR. Yes, even if they've said "black lives matter" out loud! Anyone can say black lives matter, but it takes hard work to make black lives matter -- or, for a start, to make corporations stop funding police who act like black lives don't matter.

And finally: Free Press helps you tell the Fox News Channel to fire Tucker Carlson. His presentation of Kyle Rittenhouse as a victim after he shot three Kenosha protestors (killing two) may be the last straw, but really, he's been leaving a trail of slime for a long time, most vividly in his almost pornographic reuse of looting and rioting footage over the last few months. He employed this tactic again in his Wednesday night "report," one late night TV show writer Brian Parise describes at length in a public post on his Facebook page. Go find it; it's quite illuminating. Mr. Carlson didn't mention Jacob Blake (i.e., the black man whose shooting by police stoked the protests!) in his report, though you'd think that would provide much-needed context -- but he did show the same clip of a man kicking a fence three times, as well as a black woman hitting a white woman in a church 800 miles away, whenever that happened. Sadly, what he does isn't uncommon -- watch a lengthy news report about anything and you'll see the same clips being used over and over. The difference? Generally they don't push a pro-murder perspective.

Well, this has been a busy week. I remain optimistic, however, that our efforts will, one day, deliver a lot less drama and a lot more peace and quiet.

Action: concerning Social Security, endangered species, the right to repair, and pollution.

You know our President has tried to delay the collection of the employee-side payroll taxes that pay for Social Security, and you know he's said out loud that he wants to permanently repeal that tax, thus depriving Social Security of its funding -- but you may not know that Social Security Chief Actuary Stephen Goss has said that Social Security would be out of money by 2023 if we made this payroll tax cut permanent! Which means Mr. Goss will be getting a lot of death threats this week from our President's votaries. But this is one Social Security-will-be-out-of-money prediction you can count on, because, well, when you zero out a revenue source that pays for a program, you won't be able to pay for that program anymore. Cue the Arthur Laffer Clown Car, claiming that zeroing out revenues increases revenues! Of course, we shouldn't let the greediest and stupidest among us make all the decisions in America -- which is what happens when we keep silent. Hence Demand Progress helps you tell your Congressfolk to reject any legislation that would permanently end the Social Security payroll tax. We earned Social Security, dammit.

Meanwhile, another day, another Administration attempt to gut the Endangered Species Act by rewriting the rules so that it's a lot harder to protect endangered species from oblivion. I shouldn't have to say why that's a good thing, right? I mean, when a species is gone, it ain't coming back -- just like the fuel we dig up from the ground will one day be gone, and then where will we be? Not reproducing species from fossils in amber, that's for sure! Seriously, this is a world where we have renewable sources of energy, like solar, wind, and geothermal, and we could make these our main sources of energy if Our Glorious Elites would just get with the program, but instead our Administration proposes to redefine "habitat" downward to make endangered species virtually homeless, and thus subject them to the mercy of our madness for development! Hence Wild Earth Guardians helps you tell our U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to withdraw its proposed rule changes that would hamper our ability to protect endangered species under the law.

In other news, H.R. 7956/S. 4473, the Critical Medical Infrastructure Right-to-Repair Act, would compel corporations that make critical hospital equipment (think ventilators!) to release the information that would allow third-party repair techs at hospitals to fix them. And just to head off industry propaganda, our FDA found in 2018 that third-party technicians are just as good as manufacturer-authorized techs in fixing medical equipment. You'd think our FDA might have said the opposite, so that executives in the medical equipment field could continue to restrict "proprietary" information, but they did not. And while I don't believe in trade secrets über alles, we're not even talking about releasing trade secrets that could lead competitors to reverse-engineer products -- we're talking about releasing spare parts, service diagrams, and diagnostic software that could help save lives. Hence US PIRG helps you tell your Congressfolk to make fixing machines and saving lives easier by passing the Critical Medical Infrastructure Right-to-Repair Act.

Finally, Samsung, of all corporations, is mulling investing in the proposed Vung Ang 2 coal plant, even though its builders would put it in the same fishing village that saw its livelihood wiped out by the notorious Formosa steel plant spill of 2016! And things ain't much better four years later, which you would figure, knowing that the Formosa disaster contaminated 20 miles of coastline with cyanide. A couple of big corporations have already pulled out of Vung Ang 2, and Samsung has already changed its mind about investing in the proposed Adani Carmichael coal plant that would further befoul the Great Barrier Reef, so we know the Big Stick of Bad PR can sway them. But only if we wield it! Hence Sum of Us helps you tell Samsung to pull out of the proposed Vung Ang 2 coal plant. If Samsung winds up staying with Vung Ang 2, I would have to at least wonder if they pulled out of Adani Carmichael because that plant might have affected the air and water of mostly white people, whereas Vung Ang 2 would affect the air and water of mostly non-white people. I mean, I like to think the best, even of big corporations, but too often they make that hard.

Action: concerning good House bills, taxing the rich, pollution, and health care data.

Happy Wednesday, good people! Now call your Senators and tell them to pass H.R. 1, the For the People Act; H.R. 2, the Moving Forward Act; H.R. 3, the Lower Drug Costs Now Act; H.R. 4, the Voting Rights Advancement Act; H.R. 5, the Equality Act; H.R. 6, the American Dream and Promise Act; H.R. 7, the Paycheck Fairness Act; H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act; H.R. 397, the Butch Lewis Act; H.R. 535, the PFAS Action Act; H.R. 582, the Raise the Wage Act; H.R. 986, the Protecting Americans with Pre-Existing Conditions Act; H.R. 1146, the Arctic Cultural and Coastal Plain Protection Act; H.R. 1373, the Grand Canyon Centennial Act; H.R. 1644, the Save the Internet Act; H.R. 2214, the NO BAN Act; H.R. 2474, the PRO Act; H.R. 2513, the Corporate Transparency Act; H.R. 2722, the SAFE Act; H.R. 5035, the Television Viewer Protection Act; H.R. 7120, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act; and H.J. Res. 79, which would remove the expiration date from the original Equal Rights Amendment. These bills promote voting rights, internet freedom, public lands, and consumer safety, among so many other good things, so our Senators have no excuse to ignore them. And ignore them they will, unless we make that impossible.

Meanwhile, you've heard about how well Jeff Bezos, Marc Zuckerberg, et al have been doing during this pandemic, even though you and I struggle to make ends meet? Well, S. 4490, the Make Billionaires Pay Act, would impose a one-time 60% tax on skyrocketing billionaire wealth, and would direct the proceeds toward Medicare so it can cover the out-of-pocket health care costs of all Americans for the next calendar year. The total take from this tax -- according to the bill's original sponsor, Sen. Sanders (I-VT) -- would be close to $422 billion, and would still leave said billionaires a little over $310 billion of their windfall during the pandemic, so brook no silliness from right-wingers about how extortionate this bill would supposedly be. Frankly, leaving them over $300 billion is extraordinarily generous -- I'd want to tax them until they stop acting like they're the only people who ever mattered. The 91% tax bracket sure did curb a lot of insanity in the old days, and we need only look to our whiny baby of a President to understand the damage the absence of the 91% tax bracket has done. Anyway, Americans for Tax Fairness helps you tell your Congressfolk to strike a blow for fair taxation by passing the Make Billionaires Pay Act.

In other news, our EPA has proposed new smog regulations that -- wait for it -- make literally zero improvements on the smog standard we already have, even though said smog standard is now inadequate to the amount of air pollution (and the resulting health care costs) we now face, and (this part is really important!) even though the law mandates that our EPA revise our smog standards every few years to adapt to changes in our atmosphere and in our scientific knowledge! It's beyond asking "how likely is it that our smog problem is exactly the same as it was five years ago?" and on toward asking "how likely is it that we now think smog is exactly as harmful as it was five years ago?" So, yeah, this is another pro-pollution "environmental" "regulatory" effort that will likely die a cold death in court -- but not if we don't weigh in with public comments! Hence the Sierra Club helps you tell our EPA to do its damn job and enact more vigorous smog standards. In 2015, our EPA lowered the standard from 75 ppm to 70 ppm; now we want them to lower it to 60 ppm, and if big polluting corporations whine about it, we can just remind them that they're bold and can rise to new challenges. You know, the way Americans do.

Finally, if your head is still spinning from all the which-data-is-the-right-data drama that our President and his votaries like to foist upon us, then you'll be interested to know that H.R. 6585/S. 3850, the Equitable Data Collection and Disclosure on COVID-19 Act, would not only mandate that our CDC and our Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services publish daily updates on COVID-19 cases, testing, and treatment, but would also force these agencies to publish that data by race and ethnicity, among other categories (and would require our Indian Health Service to collect COVID-19 data for the populations it serves). We all know -- well, those of us who've thought about it for a minute and who aren't addled by devotion to this particular President -- that COVID-19 disproportionately hunts down poor folks and folks of color, and that's a damn shame. We also know that this President questions the data like he has a vested interest in the data being wrong or something, and his votaries like to muddle the waters with abject falsehoods. So the Daily Kos Liberation League helps you tell your Congressfolk to support accurate medical reporting by passing the Equitable Data Collection and Disclosure on COVID-19 Act.

Action: concerning the HEROES Act, racism, police surveillance, and fuel efficiency.

Happy Tuesday, good Americans! Now call your Senators and tell them to pass H.R. 6800, the HEROES Act, and reject the suite of bills known as the HEALS Act. It ain't that damn hard, really: the HEROES Act would fund expanded unemployment benefits, would fund our Post Office, would fund COVID-19 testing and tracing, would fund public education, would fund the states and localities hit hard by this pandemic, and would issue another round of stimulus checks that would exceed the ones we got from the CARES Act. Plus, the HEROES Act would expand working family tax breaks and repeal the gazillionaire tax break that "somehow" made it into the CARES Act. And what would the HEALS Act do? Speed up Congress's ability to cut your Social Security benefits, expand the three-martini lunch tax break, fund considerably less-expanded unemployment benefits, and immunize corporations from lawsuits when they injure or kill good Americans like you and I. I think our duty as Americans is quite clear here, even if our leaders mean to mystify it.

Meanwhile, a Kenowah, WI police officer shot Jake Blake seven times in the back this past Sunday, so Color of Change helps you tell state and local decision-makers to fire the officer who shot Mr. Blake. All ye need ask yourself is this one question: does anyone deserve the death penalty before being charged with a crime? If the answer is "yes," you might want to see a therapist about your anger management issues. And if the answer is "no," then no amount of propaganda concerning "everything happened so quickly" or "what was he doing out there?" matters. If a police officer kills a person without due process of law, well, victims can't exactly get do-overs, can they? Too many police officers get do-overs after killing Americans, particularly Americans of color, but the victims can't. It's that damn simple. Admit no "Jake Blake was no angel" in your conversations about this matter. Admit no "but how many arrests did he have on his record," either. Clearly I have been far too kind toward my opponents about these matters; that stops now.

In other news, Cancel Ring helps you tell big online retail corporation Amazon to end its numerous "partnerships" with local police departments. These "partnerships" entail Amazon helping police departments collect Ring doorbell footage without warrants, a weapon our police too readily turns on protestors and folks of color. If they were trying to catch burglars, you'd still make them get a warrant, or at least you would in a sane, moral, and decent society, but in this sick, immoral, and decadent society, Amazon just helps police get all the information they want, law and order be damned. No, it is "law and order" to ensure that all Americans, even the guilty ones, get Fourth Amendment protections guaranteed by our Constitution. Those who watch TV news channels that have been replaying the same footage of looting for the last two months may not see how untrammeled police power might actually threaten their freedom. But I always wonder why someone would be happy remaining in a state of rage all the time. I mean, they get tired, don't they?

Finally, our EPA is still trying to roll back fuel efficiency standards because ANYTHINGZ TEH OBUMMERZ DIDZ IZ TEH BADZ!!!!! And worse, big auto manufacturing corporations are rolling back their own support for said standards! Remember when the Obama standards came with the endorsement of big automakers? Well, apparently their word didn't mean much. Who'da thunk it? Seriously, don't let anyone come at you with "you were naive to believe the big automakers," because either this is a civilized society in which your word means something, or it's not. Too many Americans will shrug and say it isn't once you spring that trap on them, and then you will know that doing right is less important to them than "owning the libs" or "being on the winning team." And they'll have to take that to the Pearly Gates one day! Anyway, the Sierra Club helps you tell big auto manufacturing corporations GM and Toyota to drop their support for this Administration's pro-pollution, anti-fuel efficiency policy. Their executives will have to answer at the Pearly Gates, too; maybe they'll take that to heart.

UPDATE. I did not realize that Mr. Blake was still alive. Which is excellent news! Hence I've changed one word in the second paragraph above. (Not the rest of it, though -- I'm pretty sure that when you shoot a guy seven times, you're trying to kill him.)

Action: concerning our Post Office, facial recognition technology, vaccine profiteering, and our national parks.

Our House passed H.R. 8015, the Delivering for America Act, on Saturday after convening a rare August session; the bill would roll back the many changes Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has made to U.S. Postal Service operations, and would prevent him from making any more changes -- particularly those that result, and have resulted, in mail delivery delays -- until we get COVID-19 under control. Now's a good time to call your Senators and tell them to pass the Delivering for America Act. What reasonable objection they could have I could not say -- surely they wouldn't say it's "not Congress's place" to tell the Postmaster General how to run our Post Office? I hope not, but these are, as they say, interesting times; used to be folks would say outlandish things to get attention and then apologize to get more attention, but now they just say outlandish things and then say more outlandish things to get double the attention. I suppose our Senators could point to our President's threatened veto, but Congress can override vetoes, so really, they have no excuses.

Meanwhile, our Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (or ICE) has lately contracted with Clearview AI for facial recognition technology, which we know tends to do a bad job of telling folks of color apart and thus get some 60-year naturalized citizen deported one day (if it hasn't happened already!). But Sens. Markey (D-MA) and Merkley (D-OR) have introduced S. 3284, the Ethical Use of Facial Recognition Act, which would ban the use of facial recognition technology until further legislation mandated by the bill establishes sound legal boundaries for its use. So few Americans seem to understand the whole concept of boundaries anymore -- folks tend to act like every issue in life is either-or; we can either have facial recognition technology or IMMIGRANTZ CRIMEZ RAMPAGEZ!!!!!! Of course, we can manage technological advancement so that it doesn't cause us harm; this is, in fact, one of the crucial challenges of maintaining a civilization. I know, how old-fashioned of me. Anyway, Ban Facial Recognition helps you tell your Congressfolk to ban facial recognition technology until such time as we can actually use it for good.

In other news, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell your Congressfolk to prevent big pharma corporations from profiteering off any new COVID-19 vaccine, then Moms Rising still helps you do that. Too many Americans (our President included) think of things like randomized double-blind tests as "bureaucracy." They're not -- they're how we get good science that actually helps people. Of course, for a big pharma corporation, the need to get a vaccine right -- which is to say, a vaccine that works, and without life-threatening side effects -- impedes the insane drive to profits. If we lived in a sane, moral, and decent society, big pharma corporations that made billions of dollars from rushed, bad vaccines would withdraw in deserved shame and humiliation, but in this sick, immoral, and decadent society, these same corporations assume they have a "right" to get away with it. Making us a sane, moral, and decent society has, admittedly, been a crap-ton of work, but if we can keep big pharma corporations from profiteering off pandemic vaccines, we will make that work easier.

Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell your Congressfolk to pass H.R. 2491/S. 1311, the Roadless Area Conservation Act, then Environmental Action still helps you do that. The Roadless Area Conservation Act would (deep breath) tell our Administration that they can't actually just ignore the Roadless Rule in promoting development in federal lands (sigh). It's a shame we have to do that, but these are bold thinkers in this Administration. Wait, my attempt to make "bold" into a cuss word during Tha Bush Mobb years didn't take hold ? Well, we can't all have six-figure promotional budgets. Anyway, our Administration wants to (I'm paraphrasing here) ignore the Roadless Rule, but legally, mainly so they can drill in Alaska's Tongass National Forest, the world's biggest intact temperate rainforest, where the trees are centuries (or millenia!) old and some of the animals there can't be found anywhere else. But yeah, let's churn yet another national park into fuel that'll just get burned up and pollute our air and water. That's real conservative of these fools.

Action: concerning foreign policy and "conversion" "therapy."

H.R. 8050, the Israeli Annexation Non-Recognition Act, would prevent our government from recognizing or aiding Israel's ongoing annexation of the West Bank. Yeah, I know, they've "paused" their annexation plans, but just like Mr. DeJoy's "suspension" of changes to our Post Office, this "pause" is meaningless, since annexation is so far along already. And we know Israel would have a much tougher time annexing the West Bank if we didn't send them so much of our taxpayer money. Folks who interpret my position as "anti-Israeli security" should consider, again (I mean, I feel like I've said this a hundred times!) whether Israel guarantees its security through its ongoing occupation of Palestine, or jeopardizes it. And folks who look at H.R. 8050's sponsor list and say ZOMG ITZ TEH SQUADZ!!!!! need to stop imagining politics as team sports. Your team is America, people! And we can absolutely be a friend to Israel and stand up to apartheid at the same time. Hence Jewish Voice for Peace helps you tell your Congressfolk to support H.R. 8050.

Meanwhile, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell your Congressfolk to ban "conversion" "therapy" across our great land, then Change.org still helps you do that. What is "conversion" "therapy" and why do I put it in obviously ironic quotation marks? Because it purports to change gay folks into straight folks, which is impossible, and it purports to do so through "therapies" that include re-enacting past sexual abuses and "exercises" involving nudity and intimate touching. Surely its proponents can see why such "therapy" so often leads to depression and suicide for the "converted"? Alas, many do not -- many only see their own hatred of gays, their own self-hatred, or their own need for attention and drama. I suspect many of those who do find that changing is a lot like turning around a cruise ship. But there's hope for such people. You know why? Because changing into someone who doesn't live to hurt others is much, much easier than turning gay folks into straight folks.

Action: concerning our Post Office, another coal mine, and another proposed tax cut for the rich.

You've heard our media say that Postmaster General DeJoy is "suspending" all those "operational changes" that slowed the mail and threatened our Election? Not so fast! He said he'd "suspend" plans to move equipment around but said nothing about equipment already moved, and "suspending" the changes isn't rolling back the changes. As they say, when someone shows you who they are, you ought to believe them, and the man who is still financially invested in a corporation that alternately competes with our Post Office and does contract work for our Post Office shouldn't be leading our Post Office. I'm old enough to remember when folks actually tried to avoid even the appearance of evil, but too many of us are too cynical anymore to demand even that much from our leaders. For those of us who believe cynicism is evil, Progress America helps you tell Postmaster General DeJoy to restore the 600-plus mail sorting machines already removed, and then resign. It'd be nice, for once to be able to say someone resigned in shame.

Meanwhile, most big insurance corporations (including Liberty Mutual and AIG) have shunned the proposed Carmichael mine that would further befoul Australia's Great Barrier Reef -- but British insurance corporation Aon has not. Nearly 30 million tons of coal already go through the Reef, and one accident could destroy one of the world's oldest wonders, so why do our leaders continue to reject wind and solar? Apparently because, as Ralph Nader used to say, you can't own the sun, though you can own the infrastructure that collects wind and solar power and converts it to electricity, and you'd think that'd be enough for big corporations. They tell us they're our best and boldest visionaries, but their only apparent "vision" is obliterating our history and our heritage so they can redistribute more of your money upwards to themselves. Anyway, the Big Stick of Bad PR still operates, if we wield it, so Sum of Us helps you tell Aon to protect our world's treasures and scuttle its plans to insure the notorious Carmichael mine.

Finally, with over 30 million good Americans either unemployed or underemployed thanks to our government's absolutely miserable response to this pandemic, what's our President's new great idea? Cutting the capital gains tax rate from 20% to 15%, of course, though this would deliver yet another massive tax cut mostly to rich folks. Capital gains ain't just about real estate, of course, but also about stocks and bonds, meaning rich folks already pay a lower tax rate on their stock sales than working Americans do on income above $53,325. And there's no good reason for that: stocks and real estate aren't "better" than the work the rest of us do. Hence Americans for Tax Fairness helps you tell your Congressfolk to not only reject the capital gains tax cut proposal, but raise the rate to ensure that folks pay the same tax rate on their investments as the rest of us pay on our wages. The stock market doesn't make the economy go, after all: our work does.

Action: concerning freedom of the press and water shutoffs.

In the wake of the arrest of Des Moines Register reporter Andrea Sahouri at a Black Lives Matter protest in late May, Amnesty International helps you tell Iowa state prosecutors to drop all charges against Ms. Sahouri. They've charged her with "interference with official acts" and "failure to disperse," and dragged their feet providing evidence against her, arguing that her case was too "low-priority" (since the charges are misdemeanors) for them to provide, say, body-camera evidence they couldn't even say for sure existed although Des Moines police officers have had to wear body cameras for three years now. Which only goes to show you that they don't do things like this, necessarily, to establish a precedent for sending journalists to prison, though I'm sure they think that's gravy. They do it so that journalists who want to do actual journalism that actually speaks truth to power will throw up their hands and say it's not worth it. I mean, can you imagine police arresting, say, Chuck Todd? No, you cannot -- speaking truth to power is obviously the farthest thing from his mind.

Meanwhile, Food and Water Action helps you tell your Senators to pass S. 4362, the Emergency Water is a Human Right Act, which would (among other good works) establish a national moratorium on water shutoffs while this pandemic is still raging. There is no need to include S. 4362 as part of COVID-19 relief bill "negotiations," really -- our Senators can just pass the bill, send it to our House, and then our House can pass it, and then our President can sign it. If your right-wing uncle wonders out loud why we're still letting people get water for free, remind him that there's a pandemic going on, and people can't wash their hands, or their dishes, or their houses, with water they don't have. In other words, we're not just doing it for people who, through no fault of their own, can't work and therefore can't get paid and can't pay the bills -- we're doing it for all of us, since any of us can run into someone who's had their water shutoff and get a debilitating disease from them that might kill us. And why should we let that happen? To satisfy someone's "philosophy"?

Action: concerning voting rights, phony recycling, and Social Security.

Happy Tuesday, good Americans! Now call your Senators and tell them to pass H.R. 1, the For the People Act; H.R. 2, the Moving Forward Act; H.R. 3, the Lower Drug Costs Now Act; H.R. 4, the Voting Rights Advancement Act; H.R. 5, the Equality Act; H.R. 6, the American Dream and Promise Act; H.R. 7, the Paycheck Fairness Act; H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act; H.R. 397, the Butch Lewis Act; H.R. 535, the PFAS Action Act; H.R. 582, the Raise the Wage Act; H.R. 986, the Protecting Americans with Pre-Existing Conditions Act; H.R. 1146, the Arctic Cultural and Coastal Plain Protection Act; H.R. 1373, the Grand Canyon Centennial Act; H.R. 1644, the Save the Internet Act; H.R. 2214, the NO BAN Act; H.R. 2474, the PRO Act; H.R. 2513, the Corporate Transparency Act; H.R. 2722, the SAFE Act; H.R. 5035, the Television Viewer Protection Act; H.R. 7120, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act; and H.J. Res. 79, which would remove the expiration date from the original Equal Rights Amendment. Has our House passed all these good bills because they know our Senate won't pass them and our President won't sign them? It's quite possible! Would such cowardice matter if our Senate and our President bow to our will? Of course not! But if we don't communicate that will, it'll be a moot point.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania residents, take note: some state legislators want to, ah, innovate on the definition of "recycling" so that it includes things that are patently not recycling -- like converting single-use plastics into oil or fuel -- and this would mean big corporations could claim that facilities dedicated to that purpose are "recycling" facilities. Recycling ain't just about decreasing pollution (which converting single-use plastics into fuel decidedly does not do) or reducing trash (ditto, since pollution is trash), it's also about getting utility out of trash, and if fuel burns once and is gone, well, that's about as "single-use" as you can get. Even if we could agree that corporations should do it -- as opposed to, say, solar or wind, which won't increase demand for single-use plastics! -- they shouldn't get goodies from our government for doing it, and we certainly shouldn't murder the definition of "recycling" just so they can get those goodies. Hence Penn Environment helps you tell your PA state legislators to protect our air and water by rejecting HB 1808.

Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell your Congressfolk to stop our President's raid on Social Security funding which he calls a "tax cut," then Americans for Tax Fairness still helps you do that. We shouldn't regard his obsession with cutting payroll taxes as something unique to him; rather, we should regard it as part of the right's obsession with destroying Social Security by hook or by crook. The fact that he's taken it up only demonstrates that he's one of Our Glorious Elites -- not their enemy, as a lot of his votaries fantasize. Now, I think folks generally understand that taxes pay for services we may all use -- and all of us want to live long enough to collect Social Security. Unfortunately, too many of our media "personalities" act like they don't understand it, and you can catch people off-guard if you repeat lies with conviction, and if no other media personalities call them on their lies right there and then. This is how lies get spread in America -- not just because of malicious people, but because of the cowards who don't stand up to them. But we are neither of these, and we will keep fighting.

Action: concerning the HEROES Act, our Post Office, infrastructure, and health care.

It's Monday, so it's time to call your Senators and tell them to pass H.R. 6800, the HEROES Act, and reject the suite of bills Republicans call the HEALS Act. It really is as simple as a Goofus and Gallant strip: the HEROES Act would fund our Post Office, fund unemployment benefits, fund COVID-19 testing and tracing, fund localities and states, and issue another round of (bigger) stimulus checks -- while the HEALS Act would make three-martini lunches fully tax-deductible, immunize corporations from lawsuits when they kill people, and make it a lot easier for Congress to cut our Social Security benefits. Don't worry that the two parties are "negotiating" over what a final COVID relief bill would look like, because the HEROES Act is what that bill should look like. Besides, we don't have to negotiate with them -- they have to negotiate with us. You might call that naive, but I've seen it work enough times to want it to work all the time -- and we can make it work all the time by speaking out all the time.

Speaking of our Post Office, MoveOn helps you tell our USPS Board of Governors to remove its new Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy. I guess his defenders will say he's a "logistics executive" who's "shaking up" our Post Office, but we all know logistics employees, not executives, have all the expertise, and cutting off overtime, slowing mail delivery, embarking on a mass firing spree, removing mail sorting machines, and moving blue mailboxes around all look less like "shaking things up" and more like "sowing chaos for our drama king President." And yet there are more even pressing reasons to remove Mr. DeJoy: he still owns a considerable stake in his former corporation, which feeds extensively on taxpayer funds including USPS contracts, and recently bought stock options in Amazon, which uses our USPS a lot but which is also trying to establish itself as a USPS competitor. Adding corruption to incompetence is a tried-and-true formula for our President, but we don't have to put up with it.

Meanwhile, Penn PIRG helps you tell your Senators to pass H.R. 2, the Moving Forward Act. What does the Moving Forward Act do? It would (among other things) extend this year's infrastructure funding for another year, extend several other transportation- and safety-related funds for the next five years, establish a fund to rebuild transportation infrastructure in rural areas, strengthen safety rules across all modes of transportation, and fund the rebuilding of lead-lined water infrastructure. Here's a sad note: despite the obvious need for infrastructure funding, and the bill's concentration on rural areas and clean water, H.R. 2 got exactly three Republican votes, one of whom was a Democrat until late last year. If the big media pundits got a hold of this information, they'd whine about the bill's lack of "bipartisan" appeal. Sane people, of course, would retort that Republicans have no interest in governing, and thus no "bipartisan" appeal can work with them. And that's why we step in.

Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell your Congressfolk to fully fund our Indian Health Service, then Daily Kos still helps you do that. I'm sure I don't have to say don't they know there's a pandemic on? -- especially since the Navajo Nation, in particular, had it worse than New York state three months back, and you remember how bad New York state had it. But I may have to address folks who, while not particularly bigoted, may wonder "why we're still doing stuff for the Indians." Because obliterating Native cultures might take hundreds of years to redress, that's why. "But I didn't have anything to do with that," such folks might respond. I could respond in a number of ways -- "it's not all about you," "your relative lack of culpability doesn't fix the problem I just described" -- but how about we just say America is a great nation, capable of undoing the harm it inflicts upon the undeserving.

Action: concerning Social Security, government spying, and bad media outlets.

As you know, our President signed an Executive Order late last week directing employers not to collect that half of the payroll tax workers owe -- the tax that funds Social Security and, to a lesser degree, Medicare -- through the end of the calendar year. They call it a "stimulus," but we know what it really is: a first step toward eradicating the payroll tax entirely and leaving Social Security and Medicare funding up to the whims of whichever party controls Congress and the White House. We don't know that merely because we suspect it -- we know it because our President has said so, out loud. And of course it's not a tax cut per se, since you'll still owe that money at the end of the year. He issued those Executive Orders late last week (and not earlier, when it would have received more attention from our media) for one reason: to look like he's "doing something." I get tired of leaders constantly looking like they're "doing something"; maybe they ought to just do something? Well, we'll do something, by demanding that Congress fight this Executive Order, as Demand Progress helps you do.

Meanwhile, Daily Kos helps you tell our FBI to stop spying on black protestors. What do they expect to find, looting? We now know that a lot of these looters aren't "blacks burning down their own neighborhoods," but white agents provocateurs who get their jollies breaking stuff and blaming other people for it. How many work for our government, I wonder? It's a question worth asking! In the meantime, our FBI spies on black protestors for one reason only: because they think their free speech threatens their power. Well, maybe it is a threat, to their power to run roughshod over any Americans they like, but our FBI doesn't deserve that power any more than our hapless President does when he deploys his brownshirts to big cities. "Law and order" hotheads always complain more about black folks than about, say, corporations dumping filth into our air and water. They'll never see that the latter is a legitimate law-and-order concern, but we do.

Finally, Free Press helps you tell big corporations to stop advertising on the Fox News Channel entirely. They might profess to find that notion counterintuitive, as Fox News has lately started outdrawing even the traditional over-the-air networks in ratings (not just the other cable news outlets) between 8 pm and 11 pm. But frankly that's overblown -- the over-the-air networks don't run very much of consequence during the summer, Fox News always gets ratings bumps during Presidential election seasons, the over-the-air nightly newscasts are doing a lot better than they have for some time, and Fox's flagship shows are only drawing about as much as a certain loofa-lover's show did back in the day. Besides, Fox News peddles hatred and stupidity; why would a corporation want to support that with its money? All Fox News does is condition its viewers to react to every tiny or imaginary slight with bottomless, inarticulate rage, and no corporation should enable that program with its advertising dollars.

Action: concerning health care, climate change, and drug policy.

If you've missed previous opportunities to tell our government that a COVID-19 vaccine should be available to anyone regardless of how well-off they are financially, then Americans for Tax Fairness still helps you do that. Specifically, you'll tell your Congressfolk to pass H.R. 7296, the Make Medication Affordable by Preventing Pandemic Price Gouging Act, and H.R. 7288, the Taxpayer Research and Coronavirus Knowledge Act, which would, taken together, prevent big pharma corporations from charging you an arm and a leg so you can get a COVID-19 vaccine. This ain't Big Gummint running roughshod over your rights, this is our government protecting our investments -- our government spent most of the money ever spent on coronavirus research before the pandemic, and our taxpayer money has gone into almost all of the more promising COVID-19 vaccine candidates, so don't we get some say over whether we get gouged or not? This Administration pretends we don't, but we know better.

Meanwhile, Daily Kos helps you tell big corporations to stop funding the destruction of the Amazon rain forest. They call the Amazon "the lungs of the world," thanks to its unparalleled ability to contain carbon emissions and produce oxygen, but the Brazilian government -- led by Jair Bolsonaro, one of our more disgusting Glorious Elites and as a result a man our President obviously aspires to be more like -- has been encouraging developers to set large swaths of it on fire. Of course, American corporations are hip-deep in all of that, but that means we're hip-deep in all of that, too, because where would American corporations be without our consumer dollars? Well, looks like we have a lot of power to change things here, too -- even in the Amazon/Facebook era, our choices aren't "spend money with big corporations or don't buy stuff at all." And in the Amazon/Facebook era, the Big Stick of Bad PR packs a big hurt. But only if we wield it.

Finally, the House Judiciary Committee has lately passed H.R. 3884, the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (or MORE) Act, and that means it can get a full House vote next month. The MORE Act would legalize pot by removing it from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, and tax its sale and using that money to help communities hit hardest by our now half-century-long obsession with putting down communities of color under the guise of being "tough on crime." I want those communities to recover, and would happily invest my tax dollars for that purpose, but I'm not thrilled with the proposed 5% sales tax -- it'll hit working families harder, and I would rather tax the profits of the entity making and/or selling the pot, like we do with everything else. Still, as the Libertarians will tell you, a lot of racist policing will end once marijuana is legal. Hence Drug Policy Alliance helps you tell your House Reps to pass the MORE Act, with objections like the one I've noted above, if you like.

Action: concerning corporate divestment from police foundations, social media "fact-checking," and online abuse.

Color of Change helps you tell big corporations such as Amazon, Target, Starbucks, and Comcast to divest from police foundations. Police foundations are a two-pronged menace: they fund our burgeoning police state, and they show up state, local and federal governments for failing to fund police in the first place! If we're going to have police -- and ideally, as I've said before, we will have them doing far fewer jobs -- then we ought to fund them properly, and not use tricks like asset forfeiture, the 1033 program, and police foundations to paper over that lack of funding. Police foundations, being private non-profits, also fund police departments with very little or no public oversight, which means police departments can spy on citizens and fire rubber bullets on protestors without anyone accountable to the people having actually signed off on that! Which also gives our worst public servants an unearned sense of relief, I suppose. Need I mention that corporate influence on police is a) undesirable and b) no substitute for making corporations pay their share of taxes? The only people who should be influencing police are the people police officers serve. So it's time to wield the Big Stick of Bad PR again.

Meanwhile, Facebook somehow seems to outsource its third-party fact-checking function to the worst far right-wing "news" organs, and The Daily Caller (founded by Tucker Carlson because of course it was) is just one of them. Guess what else The Daily Caller does? It tries to raise money for our President's re-election effort! Think Snopes, Factcheck.org, or PolitiFact are raising money for Joe Biden right now? (If you responded OF COURSEZ TEH LIBRUL MEDIAZ DOEZ TEH THINGZ!!!!, please navigate away from this page. And maybe see a therapist about your rage issues.) I take issue with outsourcing your fact-checking function to some big media corporation to begin with -- millions of people are looking for jobs as we speak, and my experience tells me most of them have much better BS detectors than they get credit for having! -- and I also take issue with isolating "fact-checking" as if it's some special function of a news organ rather than that news organ's reason for existence. Nonetheless, I don't want obviously biased news organ telling me what a fact is. Hence Sum of Us helps you tell Facebook to stop using The Daily Caller as a "fact-checker."

Finally, YouTube has decided (as of the end of September) to remove the feature that enables users to add features such as closed captioning and translated subtitles to videos; this Community Contributions feature sure is a fresh breath of 2007, when (regardless of whatever else was going on in the world!) it seemed like any of us could use the internet as a force for good, even if that good was merely helping deaf folks and foreign-language speakers enjoy the same videos we're all enjoying. But Google (YouTube's owner, sigh) claims it's removing the feature because it "was rarely used and had problems with spam/abuse," and I figured spam and abuse would be the real reason, but you know how you counter spam and abuse? You be like Wikipedia and you hire enough people to effectively monitor the feature for spam and abuse! Just like, you know, if you want to do fact-checking, you hire enough people to check the facts, not outsource it to some corporation or throw up your hands at how hard it is. Anyway, Change.org helps you tell Google not to remove the Community Contributions feature from YouTube. If you like, you can tell them to manage it better, too.

Action: concerning good House bills, law and order, and birth control.

Happy Tuesday, good Americans! Now call your Senators and tell them to pass H.R. 1, the For the People Act; H.R. 3, the Lower Drug Costs Now Act; H.R. 4, the Voting Rights Advancement Act; H.R. 5, the Equality Act; H.R. 6, the American Dream and Promise Act; H.R. 7, the Paycheck Fairness Act; H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act; H.R. 397, the Butch Lewis Act; H.R. 535, the PFAS Action Act; H.R. 582, the Raise the Wage Act; H.R. 986, the Protecting Americans with Pre-Existing Conditions Act; H.R. 1146, the Arctic Cultural and Coastal Plain Protection Act; H.R. 1373, the Grand Canyon Centennial Act; H.R. 1644, the Save the Internet Act; H.R. 2214, the NO BAN Act; H.R. 2474, the PRO Act; H.R. 2513, the Corporate Transparency Act; H.R. 2722, the SAFE Act; H.R. 5035, the Television Viewer Protection Act; H.R. 7120, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act; and H.J. Res. 79, which would remove the expiration date from the original Equal Rights Amendment. Our House has passed a lot of good bills that fight discrimination, vote suppression, and corporate greed; our Senate has responded by ignoring them. Our duty is clear: we either guide them out of their ignorance, or hold them accountable for it at the polls. We'd prefer the former, but we're ready to do the latter.

Meanwhile, Moms Rising helps you tell the Pittsburgh (PA) public school system to get police out of their schools. I've been saying for a while now that we use police like they're the Swiss Army knives of our civilization, and though some folks have been calling for expanding their training so they can handle all their multitudinous tasks better, I would prefer that we just use police officers for very specific purposes -- serving warrants, making arrests, and investigating crimes. We should not be sending them out to solve domestic disputes, talk folks off ledges, or "scare kids straight." Seriously, any school district that needs police officers to control kids' bad behavior needs a new spine. And the best part? Having police officers in schools doesn't do schools (or our children) any good, since a police officer's training (and therefore intuition) is to respond to situations with violence; having the right number of counselors, nurses, and psychologists does do schools (and our children) a lot of good. They said the future would be all about relatable skills, and they were right! It's the mark of a civilization that grows and makes progress. We ought to make this that civilization, wherever we can.

Finally, Daily Kos helps you tell your Congressfolk to pass H.R. 7861, which would repeal the Helms Amendment and make it legal for foreign aid to be used for abortion care. No one in the world wants more abortions, but making abortions illegal (or impossible to get, which making them illegal doesn't necessarily do) would let civilizations force women into breeder roles, and the right to abortion is the best tool we have to avoid that sorry state of affairs. The Helms Amendment has, since 1973, prohibited any foreign aid from going to abortions, and I shudder to think at all the women all over the world who haven't been able to make a better life for themselves because of it. And by "a better life" I don't merely mean a life where women can make a decision that's best for their family -- I mean a life where women don't get routinely raped, often as children, and whose resulting pregnancies become merely another way for men to control them, because that's the reality in a lot of the world today, and the Helms Amendment pretends that reality doesn't exist. Want to make abortions disappear from our planet? Support birth control, at no cost, for anyone who needs it. Right-wing swordfighters can't even do that anymore.

Action: concerning the HEROES Act, Social Security, surprise medical bills, and private prisons.

Congress is off the rest of the month, but we should still call them and tell them to pass H.R. 6800, the HEROES Act, and reject the suite of Republican-proposed bills known as the HEALS Act. This remains very simple: the HEROES Act extends enhanced unemployment benefits, funds our Post Office, and funds states and localities -- while the HEALS Act gives corporations undeserved immunity from lawsuits filed by the people they hurt and business honchos get to deduct 100% of their meals instead of 50%. Republicans must be very confident they're going to win elections this year for them to go all-in on something as moronic as the HEALS Act. Of course, our "liberal" media is helping them out, by casting Congress's failure to pass another COVID-19 relief bill as either a bipartisan or a Democratic failure. Stone cold truth is that it's a Republican failure -- the Democrats, for once, passed the HEROES Act almost three months ago, and that bill would do what the people want it and need it to do, but Senate Republicans did nothing. And we don't just "get along" with people who do nothing.

And while you have your Congressfolk on the phone, tell them to fight to the death our President's recent Executive Order deferring payroll tax contributions until after the election, because those contributions fund Social Security. Our President has said, out loud, that he'd prefer to "terminate" these contributions and fund Social Security and Medicare from general budgeting, which of course will lead eventually to at least one body of Congress throwing up its hands and saying we just can't afford it anymore! But we should not tolerate the government of the greatest nation on Earth saying we can't "afford" a dignified retirement for all our citizens. No equivocation is possible here -- a large number of politicians and not just Republicans are thrilled that our President is willing to take the PR hit for achieving one of Our Glorious Elites' long-standing goals, the destruction of Social Security. They will not stand up for Social Security unless we stand up for Social Security -- and we must stand up in such numbers that our will cannot be mistaken.

Meanwhile, previous COVID-19 legislation ensured that COVID-19 tests would be free to anyone who needed one -- or so we thought! As we speak, good Americans still get slammed with surprise medical bills ranging from $150 on the low end to $3,000 on the high end. Turns out those bills didn't address the matter of health care facilities partnering with "out of network" facilities to get the tests done, but hey, last I looked, "free" meant "free," not "free unless your local ER is out-of-network," or "free unless this particular ER doctor is out-of-network even though all the others are in-network," or "free unless we're dumb enough to use an out-of-network lab," or "free unless we gouge you by using an out-of-network lab." What do I always say? Incompetence is malice! The stupid-or-evil debate doesn't matter if the end result is evil! Hence Consumer Reports helps you tell your Congressfolk to end surprise medical billing during this pandemic. Surprise medical bills always make the news, so you'd think ending them would be a bipartisan cause. Alas, only if we make it so.

Finally, Sum of Us helps you tell TD Bank to divest from notorious private prison corporation GEO Group. TD invested heavily in GEO during the pandemic's early days, and I wouldn't blame you for thinking that's a bit of a head-scratcher there. Did TD Bank think our President's anti-immigrant cruelty was the wave of the future and it was time to get on board? Did they think there was going to be a motherlode in imprisoning folks during a pandemic? Did they fantasize that private prisons would control the pandemic better than everyone else, instead of the obvious truth that they'd do worse than everyone else, since private prisons operate facilities where you can't even pee in private? We may never know! What we do know is that private prisons, despite their relative favor with this President, put immigrant detainees in concentration camps and even if they didn't, they'd still generally do a crap job of spending taxpayer money. What we also know is that the Big Stick of Bad PR works on big corporations. If we wield it, that is.

Action: concerning public schools, pandemic data, and COVID-19 vaccines.

MoveOn helps you tell Congress to prevent our Administration from withholding federal funding from schools that do not fully reopen this fall. You contemplate our President suggesting he might do exactly that last month, and you wonder why he's so anxious to get kids packed like sardines into buildings where they can't possibly socially-distance, and you might well conclude that he's trying to get all those pesky unionized public school teachers killed. I wouldn't put it past him! But if you think that's a bridge too far for him, consider that he might decide to give all that money unused on public schools to private schools, because it's an "emergency." This is why I say incompetence is malice -- people like our President, just like George W. Bush before him, go out of their way to screw up as much as they can so they can prove "government doesn't work," and then they funnel all our taxpayer money to their cronies. But this is America, and we don't have to put up with any of that.

Meanwhile, you may recall that our Administration, faced with rising COVID-19 infections, decided to order health care providers to send all COVID-19-related data to the Department of Health and Human Services rather than the Centers for Disease Control. Presumably our President has decided he can "trust" HHS more than CDC, since the CDC is, by all appearances, actually trying to help Americans during a pandemic, while our President is only trying to help himself get re-elected. Fittingly enough, the numbers we are getting (I use Worldometers to get the latest) are still pretty damning for our President, but you would not be alone in suspecting that HHS might be concealing some information that's even worse than what we're getting. Hence Daily Kos helps you tell your Congressfolk to pass legislation that would make sure all COVID-19 data gets shared with the CDC as well as HHS. I guess if HHS wants to have a pissing match with CDC, I can't really stop them. But I would warn them that we good Americans don't have the same tolerance for drama that we used to. In fact, I would say most of us are profoundly tired of it.

Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell your Congressfolk that any COVID-19 vaccine must be available to everyone regardless of their "ability to pay," then Americans for Tax Fairness still helps you do that. Rather than asking if individual Americans can "afford" the vaccine, we should ask if we, as a civilization, can afford to let hundreds of thousands of good Americans die merely because they're not banksters! I mean "afford" in the metaphorical sense, of course -- I know some cynic out there stands ready to retort that TEH DEADZ DON'TZ NEEDZ ANY MOREZ OF TEH HEALTHZ CAREZ HA HA HA HA SNORT!!!!!! But you measure the worth of a civilization by how it treats its most needy members -- a civilization that routinely says TO HELLZ WITHZ YOUZ HA HA HA FREE MARKETZ!!!!! may not deserve to endure. And there is also the practical matter of all these folks who would be unvaccinated-because-they're-poor, and thus would be able to keep the various COVID-19 strains going. For Americans of a certain stripe, of course, that's a feature, not a bug. But this is America, and they don't get all the say around here!

Action: concerning good House bills, plastic pollution, and healthy food.

Happy Wednesday, good folks! Now call your Senators and tell them to pass tell them to pass H.R. 1, the For the People Act; H.R. 3, the Lower Drug Costs Now Act; H.R. 4, the Voting Rights Advancement Act; H.R. 5, the Equality Act; H.R. 6, the American Dream and Promise Act; H.R. 7, the Paycheck Fairness Act; H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act; H.R. 397, the Butch Lewis Act; H.R. 535, the PFAS Action Act; H.R. 582, the Raise the Wage Act; H.R. 986, the Protecting Americans with Pre-Existing Conditions Act; H.R. 1146, the Arctic Cultural and Coastal Plain Protection Act; H.R. 1373, the Grand Canyon Centennial Act; H.R. 1644, the Save the Internet Act; H.R. 2474, the PRO Act; H.R. 2513, the Corporate Transparency Act; H.R. 2722, the SAFE Act; H.R. 5035, the Television Viewer Protection Act; H.R. 7120, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act; and H.J. Res. 79, which would remove the expiration date from the original Equal Rights Amendment. This week we add H.R. 2214, the NO BAN Act, which finally passed the House last week. Our Senate has no business sitting on bills that fight discrimination and promote voting rights, internet freedom, and working families. And if we tell them enough, they'll learn it one day.

Meanwhile, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (or TCEQ) has proposed rules on regulating plastics so they don't wind up in our water, and surprise, surprise! They're not good enough -- everyone wants to keep Coke bottles out of rivers, but the TCEQ would do nothing about microplastics, which also wind up in our water and too often also wind up in our bloodstream, causing or exacerbating all manner of health problems. The TCEQ apparently did not take health care problems into account; only "environmental" problems, as if environmental problems somehow don't cause health care problems. The TCEQ, like any agency wishing a "smooth" relationship with the corporations it supposedly regulates, would give plastic manufacturing corporations another year to comply with the rules. And if people suffer for it, too bad! They must be sacrificed so that regulators and corporations can get along better! Seriously, government agencies should cultivate an adversarial relationship with the corporations they regulate; maybe then they'll do their job. So Public Citizen helps you tell the TCEQ to regulate plastics in water much more vigorously than they've thus far proposed.

Finally, our Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee -- which helps our Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services put together the Dietary Guidelines for Americans every five years -- has recommended that the Guidelines for 2020-25 advise that we limit added sugars and address how we grow food so we can actually have an agricultural sector in the coming decades. These are absolutely necessary recommendations! And of course there's no guarantee that this Administration will follow them. Word on the street, of course, is that our President -- with advice from former Bush Mobber John "The Crusher" Yoo -- has read our Supreme Court's DACA ruling (which went against him, you recall) as permission to do whatever he wants until someone sues him under the Administrative Procedure Act. And if you responded by saying I thought he was doing that already!, you win a prize, but consider that he now may feel even less constrained by the rules and norms of civilization than he did before, and consider, also, that he loves junk food and he thinks planning for the future (which "not eating sugar today" most certainly is) is for "losers." Hence the Union of Concerned Scientists helps you tell our government to adhere to the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee's recommendations.

Action: concerning government spying, pollution, food safety, and fracking.

If you've missed previous opportunities to tell your Congressfolk to reject any attempt to reauthorize the notorious USA PATRIOT Act, then the aptly-named Stop the Patriot Act still helps you do that. It sure seems like every Congressperson except Russ Feingold, Ron Paul, and Barbara Less voted for the PATRIOT Act in the immediate aftermath of 9.11, but the PATRIOT Act hasn't made us safer -- it's just made our government more likely to spy on us. What makes us safer, then? Treating people like they're not obstacles to your own wealth, obviously. That's human nature, you say? Don't justify your cowardice with a low opinion of humanity, I say. And you'll notice that our President now calls antifascist activists "terrorists," though I think they only people they "terrorize" are our President and his most racist followers. Well, we said the "war on terror" would become a tool to attack whichever group of Americans some President or other doesn't like, and we were right! (No, this country is not "on fire," Fox News viewers. Go outside on occasion. And wear a mask when you do.)

Meanwhile, our Environmental Protection Agency (or EPA) is once again daring not to live up to its name, let alone its mandate, by deciding that perchlorate winding up in our drinking water is not a big deal. The other places you commonly find perchlorate? Rocket fuel and explosives. But if you're thinking "well, people overstated the problem with that chemical from Agent Orange years ago," rest assured that scientists have a) found perchlorate in all but five American states and b) have found perchlorate disrupts thyroid function and brain development in children and fetuses. And, not for nothing, but our EPA used to find perchlorate in excess of 15 ppm to be unsafe, and our FDA still does, so what happened? We elected an Administration that thinks all regulations that actually help people must be destroyed, that's what happened. Hence Penn Environment helps you tell your Congressfolk to protect our clean water from the ill effects of perchlorate. Laws can overrule regulations, after all.

In other news, did you know that our Food Safety and Inspection Service (or FSIS) has granted almost 20 waivers to big corporations that want to speed up their meat processing? And that these waivers allow pork processing plants to monitor inspections on their own and chicken processing plants to let nearly three chickens per second go by? Don't they know that food poisoning always makes the news? Would our government think it's OK to let high school students test themselves, or let auto corporations speed up their inspections? And don't they know there's a pandemic going on? Do they only care about big corporate profits? I mean, only caring about big corporate profits is not conservative; it's corporatist, and that's a descriptor you don't want to take to the Pearly Gates. Hence Food and Water Action helps you tell your Congressfolk to force our federal food inspectors to do their real job, which is to keep our food safe.

Finally, Pennsylvania residents, take note: Governor Wolf sure picked the worst time to sign HB 732, with all its corporate welfare handouts to the fracking industry, because the Attorney General's Statewide Grand Jury investigation into fracking pollution was full of PR black eyes -- like literally "nauseating" air quality, black sludges in toilets, chronic illnesses for folks living near wells, pets dying, and farm animals giving birth to deformed or dead offspring. And that's before we get to irredeemably polluted water tables and the climate change gut-punch delivered by methane emissions from fracking wells. Hence the Sierra Club helps you tell Gov. Wolf to suspend all new gas drilling permits until he can put in some more vigorous health and clean air and water protections. Fracking ain't that popular outside of fracking CEOs and their politician lackeys, you know. And no parent ever says fracking may have stunted my child's development, but at least some CEOs got to get even richer!

Action: the HEROES Act yea, the HEALS Act nay.

Today we have one simple task: to call our Senators and tell them to pass the HEROES Act and reject the HEALS Act.

It's one simple task because the choice is simple: the HEROES Act, which has already passed the House and which would actually help a lot of good Americans get through this pandemic -- or the HEALS Act, actually a suite comprising 10 different bills, which is a steaming piece of dung. The HEALS Act's centerpiece -- a provision that would not only effectively give big corporations immunity from lawsuits when they reopen so stupidly that they cause you to get sick and die, but would let them sue workers who demand safety from said illness and death -- is noxious enough. But the bill would actively injure the American people in other ways: it would slash enhanced unemployment benefits by $400/week, it would create a commission to cut Social Security benefits "behind closed doors," and it would funnel $25 billion of your money to defense contractor corporations so they can continue to flush money down the toilet on planes that don't work. The bill would also continue the Paycheck Protection Program, which has become a notorious corporate welfare mill, with minimal additional restraints on the PPP continuing to hand out taxpayer money to big corporations. And of course the bill would also do negative damage, as it would allocate exactly zero dollars to our upcoming election, our Post Office, our states and localities, and our public schools they're so hot to reopen so they all become COVID hotspots.

But in the meantime, the HEROES Act would -- at the risk of turning this into a Goofus and Gallant strip -- help fund our states and localities, help fund our Post Office, extend unemployment benefits as they are through the end of January, and it would do all that without the stupid "corporate immunity" or "cut Social Security behind closed doors" or "hand out even more corporate welfare to defense contractor" provisions. The HEROES Act would also expand certain working family tax cuts and repeal a big bankster tax-cut-for-the-rich that "somehow" made it into the CARES Act. It would also cut working families another stimulus check -- a more sizable one than the CARES Act did, and also a more sizable one than the HEALS Act would. It would extend and expand national moratoriums on evictions and foreclosures; the HEALS Act would let the current, more limited moratoriums on these things expire immediately. And, not for nothing, but the HEROES Act's COVID-19 testing and tracing provisions are better than those of the HEALS Act. Our President loves bragging about the number of tests we've done, but America has over 330 million inhabitants, so bragging about how you've done more tests than, say, Luxembourg is just empty bragging. I chose Luxembourg for a reason, of course: that nation performs over five times as many tests per million inhabitants as we do, and they have noticeably fewer cases per million and deaths per million, too. (If your right-wing uncle says it's easier for Luxembourg because they're smaller, just remind him that great nations don't make excuses.)

I hate to make it seem to cut-and-dried, but it is: the HEROES Act is a good bill, and the HEALS Act is a bad one. I wish Republicans were less of a clown car than they are -- it seems to me it would be quite easy to create a conservative COVID-19 relief bill, one that would (for example) actually protect mom-and-pop shops instead of pretending nationwide restaurant chains with hundreds of employees are "small businesses." But they are a clown car -- indeed, one would better conclude that Republicans saw this ongoing pandemic as yet another opportunity to convert trillions more of our hard-earned taxpayer dollars into corporate welfare handouts for their cronies, as well as an opportunity to destroy even more of the institutions (like our public schools and our Post Office) that actually sustain a civilization through hard times like these. Needless to say, these actions demand that we issue them not merely a decisive defeat at the polls this year, but a humiliating one, one that discourages any of their kind from ever holding office again. In the meantime, we tell our Senators today to pass the HEROES Act and reject the HEALS Act; as always, you can find your Senators' phone numbers using the tools in the upper right-hand corner of this page (or the bottom of this page, if you're on a cellphone), and you may have to call their local numbers if you can't reach their D.C. number. Good luck, and God bless.

Action: concerning corporate immunity, Democrat weakness, and abortion.

We've talked about what a good COVID-19 relief bill should and shouldn't have, but one item on the Republican wish list requires more scrutiny: immunity for corporations from lawsuits after they force their workers back to work before it's safe or otherwise expose them and their customers to COVID-19. Because when Mitch McConnell contemplates this pandemic, his first thought, apparently, isn't "help the people" but HELPZ TEH CORPORASHUNZ!!!!!! Seriously, the proposal they've unveiled looks calculated to crash and burn in negotiations with Democrats -- except these are Democrats we're talking about, who think "bipartisanship" is all about giving in to Republicans. If we raise our voices, though, they won't have any choice but to follow us -- see how our President's pet payroll tax cuts are already off the table? We did that. Hence a group of good government groups helps you tell your Congressfolk to reject corporate immunity in any future COVID-19 relief bill.

Speaking of weakling Democrats pre-emptively conceding to Republicans, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said earlier this week that his party could be flexible on the exact amount of the unemployment benefit extension, saying "it's not $600 or bust." And they wonder why they keep getting rolled! Look, here's Negotiation 101: ask for more than you want, and you increase the chances of getting what you want. Republicans understand this well enough; it's one reason they've been able to push the center ever further right in America. Really, everyone understands this -- except for Democrats. Unless, of course, they're merely pretending to be stupid so we don't think they're evil. In any case, one thing they do understand is a complete inability to call their big donors because we've tied up their phone lines telling them to work for us on this issue. Toward that end, you can find Rep. Hoyer's contact numbers here. Hell, I'd demand $1,000 a month in extra benefits for the unemployed just because I'm so damn sick of Democrat weakness.

Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell your Congressfolk to pass H.R. 2975/S. 1645, the Women's Health Protection Act, then Daily Kos still helps you do that. You no doubt recall the multitudinous anti-abortion laws states have passed over the last decade, ranging from forcing women to get ultrasounds before getting abortions to closing down abortion clinics that don't meet absurd health "standards." Our Supreme Court struck down Louisiana's clinic closure law, but not with any particular enthusiasm for women's rights -- Chief Justice Roberts all but said the decision came down to precedent and little else. But abortion is a right, and laws seeking to derail women from exercising that right are simply wrong. And I'd err on the side of caution when considering when and whether a fetus is a person -- but I don't get to dictate to others how they ought to feel about that, and frankly I feel even worse about turning women into breeders, which outlawing abortion will do.