Thieves in the Temple.

Around the table: more lessons from the election, plus bonus EPA oppression of activists.

Joan C. Williams at the Harvard Business Review describes "What So Many People Don't Get About the U.S. Working Class." It is a really eye-opening article, and I won't be able to summarize all its necessary insights, but here are some: white working class folks "resent() professionals but admire() the rich," white working class men retain more traditional notions of manliness than most Democrats understand, and white working class folks aspire to middle-class jobs and pay, not minimum-wage jobs and pay, and see the poor as a drain on them. Of course, the right Democrat could remind people that rich folks aren't necessarily successful at anything useful -- they're just very good at redistributing workers' wealth upward to themselves.

If you've got a few minutes, check out this story of a Mississippi environmental activist apparently ramrodded into jail by our government. Tennie White got 40 months for allegedly falsifying three lab test results, but you might well come away from the story thinking she got 40 months for being a thorn in our government's side as they dragged their feet making certain local corporations clean up their mess (and these messes are worse in Mississippi than almost anywhere else). Note well, also, that this was Mr. Obama's EPA ringing her up -- though I suppose Mr. Trump's EPA will ring a lot more of them up.

Daniel Golden at ProPublica writes about how the problem of "legacy admissions" to colleges has only worsened over the last decade. The most famous legacy admission in America right now might be Trump advisor Jared Kushner, who got into Harvard the year after his father made a $2.5 million donation to the school, and Mr. Golden's 2006 book found this phenomenon quite rampant at America's universities; now fewer legacy admissions get in, but they still get in at a higher clip than the general population. So the next time someone complains to you about affirmative action, you can trump (so to speak!) them with legacy admissions. (Hate to pile on, but this is also yet another argument for the 91% tax bracket on millionaire income: if we have fewer folks with too much money to begin with, we should have fewer legacy admissions as well.)

Peripherally-related to the item from the other day in which Rick Perlstein warns us against making casual connections between past and present, Robert Borosage presents "Lessons from the Reagan Years" as we "Tak(e) on Trump." I agree that Democrats shouldn't "accomodate" Mr. Trump for short-term gain in 2018, not necessarily because there'll be no short-term gain in 2018 under any circumstances, but because you don't fight a radical by appearing "sensible" and "reasonable." Of course, these days you barely even have Republican moderates -- the Republican moderate caucus in the Senate when Mr. Reagan took office was two dozen strong; today, that "caucus" is Susan Collins of Maine, who rarely bucks leadership.

Finally, Paul Krugman says that "a bit more populism" won't solve the Democrats' problems with white working-class voters. Problem is, Mr. Sanders's proposal to "stand up to Wall Street, to the insurance companies, to the drug companies, to the fossil fuel industry," isn't a "bit" more populism for Democrats, it's a lot more -- Democrats don't stand up to any of these actors because they're afraid of losing their money. Also, while his pessimism about the "liberal" media actually covering "changed policy positions" is understandable, it's not the attitude that helped get rid of slavery, either.

Around the table: more Brexit, and now also Texit.

John Pilger at Counterpunch calls the Brexit vote "an act of raw democracy," and notes that the British elites who "can't" understand why "these people" wanted Brexit "are the products of an affluent, highly privileged, educated middle class, groomed in the fakery and political treachery of post-modernism." At least one member of the British "liberal" media just comes out and says "(n)ow surely we can agree referendums are bad for Britain." Always Our Glorious elites stroke themselves over their love of democracy -- until it gives them the results they don't want, and then they turn on it. If children did that, we'd call them spoiled brats.

In a related note, Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept reminds us that Brexit is "a glaring repudiation of the wisdom and relevance of elite political and media institutions" which "have spawned pervasive misery and inequality, only to spew condescending scorn at their victims when they object." The good news? Some "liberal" media outlets are starting to suspect that maybe they should share some of the blame for what happened. I doubt that spreads, though, at least not in the short run. Right now, it looks a little like a safety valve, a typical trick of Our Glorious Elites who pretend to "understand" our grievances and "care" about us right as they're about to put the screws to us again.

Even a House subcommittee thinks that a fraud case against Exxon Mobil is little more than a "conspiracy" to deprive Exxon Mobil of First Amendment rights Remember: this isn't about ExxonMobil honestly analyzing the climate situation and honestly finding nothing wrong, but about them honestly analyzing the climate situation and finding things very wrong and lying about it to their shareholders and to the rest of us. And this bears repeating: fraud is not "speech." What's next? Are we going to call murder "speech"? How about pollution? Or burglary? This is what happens when courts are so hot to declare money "speech." It's also what happens when courts declare that corporations have the "rights of people," as disgusting a fiction as I've ever heard. What's next? Is my chair going to have the "rights of people"?

California prepares to launch experiment to find out whether it can replace the gas tax with a per-mile charge. I suppose it would be less regressive (but only if poor working families can get a rebate), but it'd be a boondoggle for privacy reasons -- your government could track your movements with it. I'll brook no if-you've-done-nothing-wrong-you've-got-nothing-to-fear, because you know our government always "discovers" things you're doing to be "wrong" when their backs are to the wall. (Of course, with California, I can't complain that taxes on millionaire income aren't high enough, because they are. But I'd still look at their corporate welfare giveaways.)

Now that the Supreme Court has upheld the University of Texas's method of considering race in college admissions, ProPublica reminds us of Nikole Hannah-Jones's 2013 article on the subject, in which we learn that the white student who alleged that she didn't get into UTexas-Austin because she was white was very likely full of soup. Key facts: of the 47 students with lower grades and test scores than Ms. Fisher who got in ahead of her in 2008, 42 were white; more than 160 black/Latino students did as good as or better than Ms. Fisher also didn't get into Austin; and Ms. Fisher didn't actually graduate in her high school's top 10 though more than 90% of Austin's admittees that year did. And note how cavalier her lawyer is about the quality of his own argument. Nice work if you can get it!

Finally, at least one ardent Texas secessionist is heartened by the Brexit result. To which I say the same thing I always say: if you wanna leave, then go! Make your Oklahoma relatives get a passport to come to Texas, and don't count on any more federal assistance with your public schools. Also, prepare to lose the Cowboys, so they can remain "America's Team." I think Las Vegas would be the perfect landing place for them -- unless the Oakland Raiders get there first.

Supreme Court strikes down Section 4(b) of the 1965 Voting Rights Act as unconstitutional, arguing that making several states and counties pre-clear electoral law changes with the federal government made sense in 1965, but that the specific discriminatory conditions 4(b) addresses have improved in those areas such that 4(b) places a burden on those areas today. The best I can say for the majority opinion is that it reads 4(b) very, very narrowly; the worst I can say for the dissent is that it takes eight pages to start winning the argument. The decision does open the door for Congress to pass a revamped 4(b), though I won't hold my breath.

Senate Agriculture Committee narrowly passes Begich/Murkowski GMO salmon labeling amendment to agricultural appropriations bill. Since the ag-approp bill is a must-pass, and the amendment passed with more than one Republican's support (Ms. Collins and Mr. Kirk also voted yea), GMO salmon labeling will likely pass the entire Senate -- though if the House passes a different bill, the amendment could be conferenced out. Still, good news.

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit again rules in favor of an obscure firm named Ultramercial which claims to have patented the idea of running web ads instead of charging website visitors for content. Now Ultramercial gets to file frivolous lawsuits against anyone else who might have this absurdly common idea, just as our Founders intended. Next up: I patent breathing, and sue everyone!

ProPublica's Nikole Hanna-Jones explains why class-based affirmative action may not be the sword that slices the Gourdian knot of American ambivalence over race-based affirmative action. Long story short: poor white kids generally don't get sequestered in bad neighborhoods and bad schools, and white/Asian kids account for more than four out of five poor kids who do well in school, suggesting that class-based affirmative action won't be de facto race-based as often as I'd have presumed.

From the EVERTHING IZ TERRORIZM!!!! file: Tennessee Department of Environment official claims that baseless complaints about water quality comprise "an act of terrorism" "under Homeland Security." I guess if Mr. Smith feels "terrorized" by what most bureaucrats would find irritating, he can always go see a therapist -- unless, of course, he's just trying to intimidate folks into keeping their mouth shut about water so bad they have to boil it.

Paul Ryan blames Democrats for the farm bill's defeat in the House -- ignoring the poison pill amendment Republicans rammed through mere minutes before the vote -- but also reminds us that he didn't vote for the farm bill, either. Then he treats us to a paragraph of bloviating about Congressfolk "keeping their word" with each other, instead of the more pertinent problem of whether Congressfolk keep their word with the people they represent.

Republican Congressional aide still calls himself the "undisputed SNAP challenge champion," even though he actually failed to feed himself on food stamp money for a week. He had "an unexpected trip," after all, and so he couldn't do it the way he was supposed to. These Republicans, always needing to bend the rules to get anything done! Anyone heard of Donny Ferguson before this week? No? Now let's never speak of him again.

ProPublica tells us just about everything we need to know about Abigail Fisher's affirmative action case, which the Supreme Court just bumped back down to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. Long story short: Ms. Fisher's whiteness almost certainly didn't keep her off the University of Texas's Austin campus, or her lawyers would have spent more time arguing that -- and she didn't even finish in the top 10 percent of her class or get a gang-busters SAT score, which somewhat undercuts her own "work hard and be rewarded" argument.

Finally, Maine Gov. Paul LePage has announced he'll no longer comment on stories published by three newspapers who have lately published stories critical of his Administration. Does Mr. LePage ever remember that he won with 38% of the vote?