Senate Finance Committee holds hearing on corporate taxes that concentrates almost entirely on reducing the corporate tax rate, and not on closing corporate tax loopholes, as most Americans would prefer. Congressfolk don't listen to their constituents -- now there's a shock! Of course, given that Sen. Rubio defined his 2014 intervention arguing for Education Department leniency toward Corinthian Colleges as something he did "on behalf of his constituents," it's not at all clear that Congressfolk really understand what a "constituent" is. Probably they just think it's anyone who gives them lots of money.
Jeff Nesbit, writing at Salon describes a "right-wing lie factory" even "more insidious than Fox News." Backed financially by shadowy Koch brothers-related groups, the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity (originally housed in a Montana taffy shop, apparently just so it could have a "physical address") produces "news" stories pushing the same anti-government, anti-tax, and anti-regulation line you've come to expect from right-wing news sources -- but it takes advantage of the continuing dissipation of local media outlets by providing them with cheap copy. Which is yet another reason we ought to fight for real local news sources that hire real reporters and do real stories. I wish it were of more comfort that when right-wing dark money groups fund "citizen journalism" like this, they show they can't win arguments on the merits.
Two high-level intelligence officials state that our intelligence and defense workers have an "unbelievable" amount of child pornography on their work computers -- but the NSA professes ignorance of exactly how widespread that problem might be. That sure does seem unlikely, doesn't it? We know what that means -- and, sadly, it almost certainly does not mean that the NSA's spying powers aren't all they're cracked up to be. But if you can't protect children from sexual predators, you certainly have no business purporting to protect America from terrorists.
Hoo boy, Exxon suggests that the lawsuits against them for lying about climate change violate their First Amendment rights, and numerous right-wing media outlets parrot their argument. But the charge against them is that they knew climate change was happening, but told their investors and shareholders the precise opposite, which we would more aptly describe as fraud. And just as the First Amendment doesn't protect you from any criticism you deserve, it doesn't protect you from any fraud you've committed, either. (And I feel compelled to mention, in light of yesterday's discussion of habeus corpus, that while individuals on death row only get a year to appeal their convictions, corporations get for-freaking-ever to challenge decisions against them.)
Donald Trump advises West Virginians not to vote in tomorrow's primary, because he's got it all wrapped up now. All this work we do fighting the notion that democracies and elections are about the politicians and not about the people, and here comes this bigmouth to poop all over it. Never mind that West Virginians will be selecting gubernatorial nominees tomorrow -- apparently, they don't matter, because they're not Trump. What disgusting narcissism. (Yeah, he walked it back later, but is it too much to ask that nominees not be narcissists in the first place? We expect that from each other, after all.)
Finally, Alexa Strabuk, writing at Yes! magazine, takes us back to mid-1960s California, and the Filipino grape laborers who went on strike for better pay and working conditions and ultimately helped give birth to the United Farm Workers. The owners of the Delano grape field where they worked kept Filipino and Chicano workers separated, so that they could use one group to break any strikes conducted by the other -- but Filipino workers reached out to Cesar Chavez's National Farm Workers Association, and though the two groups experienced tension over the next five hard years, they won largely because (in one contemporary's words) of the "genuine solidarity" between the two groups. Sadly, Filipino involvement in these struggles has been largely forgotten over the years -- at least partly because Our Glorious Elites would rather not tell stories about different people uniting to fight them. But not entirely forgotten, of course.
Comments