You need good news, so you get good news: Yes! magazine details some more victories procured by the people this recent Election Day. Among other things, towns in three states banned fracking, communities in five states voted overwhelmingly against Citizens United and its notion of corporate "personhood," a California city council beat back oil-backed challengers, and a Florida city imposed campaign contribution limits. You may call these trifles, but every victory sets an example. And yes, we have all been here before -- not just four years ago, but ten years ago.
FAIR doesn't think young folks are becoming Republican so fast like the "liberal" media's been saying for a few weeks now. Main problem with the oft-referenced Harvard Institute of Politics study? The young folks who said they were "definitely" voting broke for Republicans, but these "definite" voters comprised only a little over 1 in 4 of all the young folks Harvard surveyed; most young folks still vote left, for all the reasons you'd expect. Still, who cares about facts when you can write a titillating headline?
Kelly Phillips Erb at Forbes warns about an IRS-related identity-theft scam. How it works: someone calls you, claiming that you can't file your tax returns electronically anymore because the IRS thinks someone's stolen your identity -- and then that someone repeatedly calls you for personal information and payment, even threatening you with a summons if you don't comply. Thing is, the IRS doesn't ask for payment over the phone, will contact you over snail mail if they think there's a problem, and won't compel your participation in identity theft investigations. Yes, I know our casino economy discourages honest work, but that fact doesn't let dishonest people off the hook.
Being a Medicare-for-all kind of guy, I'm not that emotionally invested in "obstructing Republicans' efforts to repeal Obamacare," but Joan McCarter reminds me of something very important about the "medical device tax": that it taxes very few medical devices, and those devices are all very rare and specialized like artificial joints, not your run-of-the-mill "medical device" like a pair of glasses. That's a very important point, especially since I'm sure the "liberal" media will "forget" to report it in their zeal to prove how "bipartisan" medical device tax repeal is.
Finally, a charter school chain claims its administrators' salaries comprise a "trade secret," but the North Carolina State Board of Education doens't agree. Yet another danger of privatizing our public schools! It's obvious to you and me that if you take public money, you don't get to keep how you spend public money a big secret, but I guess it's nice to see that some arm of the most reactionary government in the country agrees. Now let's see action.
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