Did you know the nefarious American Legislative Exchange Council -- a.k.a. ALEC, the organization responsible for so many regressive laws at the state level -- has registered itself as a charity? Yes, ALEC is a 501(c)(3) entity, and 501(c)(3) entities are usually corporations that do charitable, religious, scientific, or literary work -- a lot of amateur sports organizations are also 501(c)(3) tax-exempt entities. Does ALEC's work weakening unions, disenfranchising voters, cutting corporate taxes, or watering down environmental regulations sound like charity to you? Note, also, that a 501(c)(3) has to be either a public charity -- and must by law have very broad public support (i.e., not from a few rich donors) -- or a private foundation which exists mainly to make donations to other good causes. Sounds like ALEC found a loophole and drove a Mack truck through it. So Common Cause helps you tell the IRS to investigate ALEC's tax status. And no, we are not a "lynch mob" "out to get ALEC." We are good folks prodding our government to enforce the law.
Meanwhile, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell your Congressfolk to support paid family medical leave via H.R. 1439/S. 786, the FAMILY Act, Moms Rising still helps you do that. Apparently John Oliver -- he of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver -- delivered another inspiring ten-minute-plus rant excoriating American politicians for failing to support paid family medical leave in America. The United States is one of two-count-'em-two countries that don't give new mothers paid medical leave; Papua New Guinea is the other. That's not something we want to chant WE'RE NUMBER ONE! about. I suppose the BUT WHOZ WILLZ PAY FOR ITZ!!!!! crowd will want to know how we're going to afford it, so n.b. that the FAMILY Act would impose an 0.2% tax (that's two-tenths of one percent, not "two percent") on the wages employers pay. Boy would I be annoyed to hear anyone respond that "they'll just pass that cost on their customers." I mean, any of their customers might need paid family medical leave one day, and would thus benefit from the tax more than corporations could hurt them with it.
Finally, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood joins with Corporate Accountability International to help you tell McDonald's to stop all marketing aimed at children. Why? Because children have got it in their heads that fast food is really neat and cool, when actually it's a major cause of the epidemic of juvenile obesity and Type 2 diabetes. And when right-wingers admonish us to simply "toughen up" and not get our kids fast food all the time, ask them why McDonald's has so many toys and mascots and Happy Meals. Surely they don't think that stuff is aimed at responsible adults! And of course it's not -- it's aimed at children, who we know can't make very many decisions affecting their welfare at a young age. And yet corporations insist on doing it, relentlessly, such that weary parents get worn down. If you know you're doing that, and you know you're wrong for doing it, then why do you keep doing it? And why should we allow you to evade responsibility for doing it, while, again, heaping all of the blame on the victim?
Comments