The "liberal" media reports that President Obama's "State of the Union" address tomorrow will focus on ways he can "bypass Congress" and "unilaterally" act -- without noting, of course that Mr. Obama would act "unilaterally" with powers Congress has already granted him in previous legislation. For better and for worse, Congress doesn't write laws telling the President exactly what to do so much as they write laws telling him to figure out how to do what they want him to do, and Mr. Obama hardly needs to run to Congress for permission that they've already given. And one of the things Mr. Obama can do (since Congress has not heeded the will of its owners, the people, to hike the minimum wage) is raise the minimum wage for federal workers, at least, and he can do that with an Executive Order. Let the haters who sat silently while Mr. Bush wrote his multitudinous Executive Orders cry AMURRIKAN CAESAR!!!!! at Mr. Obama for giving poorly-paid federal workers something other than the back of his hand. Democracy for America helps you tell Mr. Obama to raise the minimum wage for federal workers.
Meanwhile, the dirty energy corporations continue to spew their filth about how Big Gummint regulations will hurt consumers and destroy the economy. What a bunch of damn whiners! Aren't these our best and brightest, the people who can conquer any obstacle, the people who can do anything? More to the point, it's a pack of lies -- regulations create jobs, for people who interpret new regulations and people who refit power plants to comply with regulations. And regulations also save money, in health care costs for people who breathe cleaner air and drink cleaner water and thus don't have to go to the doctor and miss work days all the time. Admittedly, regulations do not allow dirty energy CEOs to line their pockets with gold, but they don't get all the say about everything around here. So Public Citizen helps you tell the EPA to curb carbon emissions from new power plants. Hell, a planet that's heating up ain't gonna be good for anyone, either -- except those people who only care about making as much money as they can right now and say to hell with the future of anyone and anything else.
Finally, need another reason to push the FCC to reclassify broadband services as "communication services," so it can impose net neutrality regulations that put you (not some big corporation) in charge of what you see and do on the internet? Former FCC Chair Michael "the Lesser" Powell has threatened "World War III" if the FCC even thinks about reclassification -- as in Congress gutting the FCC's authority and budget. You'd think the son of a man who actually fought in Vietnam would know better than to compare political bullying to war, but Michael Powell is Bush Mobb through and through. Need any more locker-room bulletin-board material for your fight? Verizon claims its First Amendment right to free association permits it to slow down or block any websites from your computer. Never mind your First Amendment right to free association, good consumer! So the ACLU, Free Press, Demand Progress, Color of Change, and the Sierra Club all help you tell the FCC to preserve net neutrality by reclassifying broadband services. Certainly we want to avoid a future where we're forced to watch clips from TLC reality shows on the internet instead of checking out our favorite political blogs because those blogs didn't pay tribute to Verizon and TLC did.
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