Ryan Conrad at TruthOut describes his application of a "harm reduction strategy" to voting -- as in, voting for the candidates who'll cause the least harm. I'm no anarchist like Mr. Conrad, but this philosophy maps pretty well onto mine -- I've come to believe that we tend to invest too much of ourselves in our candidates, when voting for the candidate that does the least harm is the approach that'll give you the most breathing space. Plus, "(t)he choice is not between either direct action organizing or voting, but both/and. The choice is not mutually exclusive." Too many of us think our duty is done when we vote for President, but our duty only begins on Election Day -- and no, voting for Mr. Trump because you think it'll "galvanize the opposition" not only doesn't work, it's pretty cruel.
Adam Johnson at FAIR investigates the "liberal" media's tendency to "Blam(e) Millennials for Their Elders’ Trump Attraction." I've said millennial attraction to Gary Johnson doesn't recommend them, but "liberal" media organs tend to fixate on that to the exclusion of all other data -- like, that millennials reject Donald Trump by a considerably larger margin than any other age group, which does recommend them. And "liberal" media attempts to blame TEH FAILING EDUCASHUN SYSTEMZ!!!! for the Rise of the Hated One don't hold water, either, since Donald Trump is doing best with America's oldest citizens, those most spared from the hypothetical rot in American educational instruction. And the execrable Max Boot throws in some Bernie Sanders-bashing, too -- though, again, Trump and Sanders supporters tend to be very far apart in age. And, ah, Donald Trump is not in any way the "liberal" media's fault?
Hillary Clinton proposed expanding tax relief for working families. My note to myself before writing this paragraph read "I'd better be able to describe this before my readers fall asleep" -- since some of her corporate tax and student loan debt proposals challenge that standard. But, actually, it's pretty easy to explain -- she would aim to double the tax credit (from $1,000 to $2,000) per child if that child is four years old or less, and eliminate a fairly arbitrary-seeming income threshold ($3,000) for getting the tax credit in the first place. I bet even some Republicans might go for this -- in some sane alternate universe, that is.
Ho hum, Louisiana Congressfolk who lobbied for our assistance after the flooding there earlier this year rejected similar relief for New Jerseyans after Superstorm Sandy. I said "our" instead of "federal" in the previous sentence because, hey, who funds our government? We do. And I'm guessing we're not so callous a people that we would refuse to spend our money to help other Americans who are suffering through no fault of their own -- even if our representatives are that callous. (We also learn, by the way, that the bill containing relief funding for Louisiana had other things in it, too -- and the Louisiana Congressfolk complained about the Sandy bill all those years ago precisely because it had other things in it.)
ProPublica reports at length about how "former Obama administration officials and other well-connected Democrats" lobbied the Justice Department into dropping a major antitrust lawsuit that would have prevented the American Airlines/U.S. Airways merger. I'm sure Republicans would have been more brazen, but, as one observer of the Obama Administration's disappointing anti-monopoly record puts it, "(t)oo often, they really took the business side." Trigger warning: you'll hear the same gobbledygook corporations always peddle when merging, though "greater choices and more efficiency for travelers" really seems to mean "greater choices in fees and more efficiently-delivered fees for travelers."
Finally, Mary Beth Quirk at The Consumerist tells you whom to call if someone steals your credit card information. First up is the bank that issued your credit card; the sooner you tell them (and you have to tell them right away) the less you're liable for. Second is the FBI (and perhaps local police, if you're comfortable with them), since someone who's stealing your credit card info is likely stealing others' credit card into, too. And besides, what good are laws if we're not going to use them to redress the wrongs done to us? Of course, if someone stole more than just your credit card info, you'll have to do more -- but the article has a link for that, too.
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