Sens. Warren (D-MA), McCain (R-AZ), Cantwell (D-WA) and King (I-ME) have introduced S. 1282, the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act. The original Glass-Steagall Act (repealed in 1999) kept banks and securities firms from affiliating with each other in very many significant ways, which meant the big banks didn't take big gambles with your money, and which also meant that the sixty-plus years the law remained on the books saw exactly zero big banking meltdowns like 2008's. Of course, our elites claim that we're better off with our banks so big (they mean, of course, that the banks are better off being so big) or that Glass-Steagall wouldn't have prevented Lehmann Brothers from going under (though it would have prevented Bank of Amerikkka, which almost went under, from doing all the damage it did) or that we've got better tools to fight big banks (many of them contained in bills Congress ain't rushing to pass!). They really think we're stupid. So you might want to call your Reps and Senators telling them to support S. 1282, just to remind them you're not stupid.

Meanwhile, H.R. 2218, a David McKinley (R-WV) production, would prevent EPA regulation and cement state authority to regulate coal ash -- when it's lax state regulation that makes federal intervention necessary! Remember the massive spill in Tennessee in 2008, when toxic coal ash sludge found its way into people's homes and took several years and a billion dollars to clean up? And what do I say about the useless of Republican "moderates"? It's no good that Mr. McKinley voted against the Paul Ryan budgets if he's going to fight for coal corporations' "right" to dump their mercury, lead, and arsenic into your drinking water via their inadequately-built tailing ponds. And H.R. 2218 isn't some crazy House stunt that'll go to the Senate to die -- it could very well pass the Senate, with the help of folks like West Virginia's Joe Manchin, himself a staunch ally of coal, and that would, sadly, instruct us about the useless of Democratic "moderates." Still, they must bow before the people, so CREDO helps you tell Congress to lay off efforts to regulate coal ash as toxic waste.