Thieves in the Temple.

Around the table: in which we introduce, and then banish, a new character.

Looks like the government of China is reacting to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak by, sigh, arresting folks for criticizing government responses to the outbreak. The charge, of course, is "false information without verification," which sure does sound like something a snowflake government would concoct to arrest its critics. Thank God that doesn't happen here! Er, except that our President wants to change the libel laws and calls everything he doesn't like "fake news."

Who leads all Presidential candidates in fund-raising among soldiers? Why, Bernie Sanders, of course! What, you were expecting our President? I said it before and I'll say it again: our President doesn't get support from the military so much as he gets support from people who constantly preen about their own love for the military, and these are not the same thing. But, gosh, many of our soldiers seem to like a guy who has actually worked against all the stupid wars these soldiers have to fight. There's a lesson in there, somewhere.

Two Cato Institute analysts remind us that maybe selling weapons to the countries on our President's Muslim ban isn't such a hot idea. You won't be heartened to learn that more American weapons get stolen during this Administration than previous ones, but the real question for our Administration is: if you think these countries are so dangerous, why are you selling them guns and bombs? Particularly since these countries will most likely use these guns and bombs on their own people and thus drive more of them to try to leave? Then again, I guess that question answers itself -- you can't expect to keep a "war on terror" going if you actually try to solve the problems that cause or exacerbate terrorism.

Montana state legislator says the Constitution gives him permission to jail or shoot socialists, then points out exactly where in our Constitution ha ha I kid of course he didn't. Seriously, though, a little over a year ago he introduced a bill which would have mandated the state of Montana to buy a flailing power plant, which would have made him what, class? That's right, a socialist! This Rodney Garcia represents Montana's 52nd legislative district, but hopefully not for much longer; how about, in the meantime, we never speak of him again?

Finally, the Iowa caucus meltdown demonstrates, to me at least, everything wrong with the Democratic Party -- the next time some Democratic politico tells a group of coal miners they should Learn to Code, they can retort well, I guess we couldn't do worse than Shadow! But you may recall that we didn't know the name of the real winner of the Republican Iowa caucus in 2012 for several weeks, and given that Ron Paul had a legit shot at winning that caucus, I can't help but wonder if the Democrats screwed this up on purpose to deprive Sen. Sanders (who had been leading in late polls, and who was leading the popular vote, albeit narrowly, in the first set of returns released yesterday) of any possible bounce. I know, these are Democrats we're talking about, but how often over the years have we seen malice pretend to be mere incompetence?

Action: concerning Senate intransigence, unconstitutional war-making, and freedom of the press.

It's Monday morning, and you know what that means: it's time to call your Senators and tell them to pass H.R. 1, the For the People Act; H.R. 3, the Lower Drug Costs Now Act; H.R. 4, the Voting Rights Advancement Act; H.R. 5, the Equality Act; H.R. 6, the American Dream and Promise Act; H.R. 7, the Paycheck Fairness Act; H.R. 535, the PFAS Action Act; H.R. 582, the Raise the Wage Act; H.R. 986, the Protecting Americans with Pre-Existing Conditions Act; H.R. 1146, the Arctic Cultural and Coastal Plain Protection Act; H.R. 1373, the Grand Canyon Centennial Act; H.R. 1644, the Save the Internet Act; H.R. 2513, the Corporate Transparency Act; H.R. 2722, the SAFE Act; and H.R. 5035, the Television Viewer Protection Act. You may be tiring of telling your Senators to pass these bills, but the more they hear from us, the more embarrassed they'll be -- and the more they'll swing our way, as is their damn job. They need to hear from us that we want bills that protect voting rights, working families, public lands, disadvantaged minorities, and internet freedom. And they need to suffer the consequences of standing against these things -- you know, like losing their jobs.

Meanwhile, our President has declared that the 2002 Authorization to Use Military Force (or AUMF), which authorized war with Iraq, also authorizes war with Iran! And that's reason enough to let Demand Progress help you tell your Congressfolk to repeal the 2002 AUMF -- because all this open-ended authority for the Executive branch to wage war isn't a good thing, and certainly isn't how our Founders envisioned our government running. They envisioned Congress declaring war, after all, and the fact that Congress has largely abdicated that duty since the end of World War II doesn't change that fact, and certainly doesn't change what's right or what works. I wish I could say that our current President's claim was the most absurd claim I've heard from a recent President over his authority to bomb wherever he likes, but sadly, it's not -- President Obama's claim that various AUMFs gave him authority to strike in Libya and Syria were, frankly, more strained, and if our current President's votaries weren't so good at letting their pride erase their memory, they'd see that their Personal Lord and Savior is wrong, too. I'm not going to lay money on that happening any time soon, but I'd be happy to be wrong about that.

Finally, Roots Action helps you tell the Brazilian government to drop cybercrime charges against journalist Glenn Greenwald. Mr. Greenwald's website, The Intercept, published articles last year exposing the infamous Brazilian "corruption" probe -- one which happened to put a lot of liberal politicians in jail, and just so happened to put the current President's opponent in jail while the campaign was going on! -- as an utter sham, and for that, the Brazilian government has arrested him. I like to believe folks are deeper than they seem, so I wish there were more to it than that, but there's not -- journalists who actually practice journalism, and expose the folly and venality of Our Glorious Elites, are more likely to wind up in jail than banksters who foreclose on grandmothers overdue by 27 cents on their mortgage. Of course, Brazil has laws, too, so they can't just put a journalist in jail for publishing leaked or hacked info; they have to insinuate that Mr. Greenwald somehow aided the hackers. But I'll believe the journalist who exposed government misdeeds over the government embarrassed by those misdeeds any day. It's not like we have a lot of journalists left, after all.

Action: freedom of the press, payday lenders, and safe schools.

Amnesty International helps you demand that the Burmese government release journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo. The government has charged them with violating Burma's Official Secrets law, after they met two police officers in a restaurant who handed them rolled-up papers. Sound like a set-up to you? And certainly such a set-up would have absolutely nothing to do with their ongoing investigation of the murder of ten Rohingya Muslims in western Burma! The government detained the two reporters for over three months before their first court hearing, and oh, the police said they presented a warrant to Wa Lone's family in order to search his house the day after the arrest, but the family says they didn't. Whom to believe? The family who has every reason to fall in line behind the government's official story, or the government that has every reason to lie? Their Rohingya massacre sure hasn't gotten them the best PR, after all.

Meanwhile, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, under former Director Richard Corddray, put together some regulations that do more to prevent payday lenders from trapping people in a downward spiral of debt. So naturally Congress is grateful that the CFPB actually did something to protect consumers, something Congress itself hasn't seen fit to do over the years. I kid, of course -- whether they find intolerable the mere existence of a single regulation that might actually help people or whether they're as mad as their President to undo anything that might have the name Obama on it, Congress has introduced H.J.Res. 122/S.J.Res. 56, another "resolution of disapproval" that would nullify the CFPB's payday loan rules. Why on Earth would you want to be pro-financial predator? Consumer Reports helps you tell your Congressfolk to support consumer protections by rejecting H.J.Res. 122/S.J.Res. 56.

Finally, on the heels of several local reports detailing the various health care risks Philadelphia children still face in their schools -- like asthma and lead poisoning -- Penn Environment helps you tell Philadelphia's Mayor and City Council to get rid of health care hazards in schools. You can still find lead in paint in Philadelphia public schools, and in some rooms lead dust levels were 150 times higher than federal standards allow. You can also find lead in outdated water fountains, asbestos in ceiling tiles, and mold and rat poop in classrooms, and these are not things we should tolerate in the Birthplace of Freedom, because they help cripple our future. Ultimately, as I've long said, Philadelphia property taxes are going to have to go up if we want to make our schools safe again. In the meantime, cleaning up the toxins and hiring more custodial workers sure won't hurt.

Action: press freedom, school lunch nutrition standards, and redistricting.

Amnesty International helps you tell the Burmese government to release two Reuters journalists investigating that government's ongoing extermination of its Rohingya minority. And what bogus charge do these two intrepid journalists face? The Burmese government says that by procuring "important and secret government documents" -- it's a good thing they said the documents were "important" and "secret"! -- they've broken the Official Secrets Act, but legal experts inform us that Burma rarely-if-ever prosecutes anyone under this law, a relic of British colonial rule. And even the Trump Administration has demanded the release of the two journalists; surely the Nobel Peace Prize-winner heading up the Burmese government doesn't want to be outclassed by the Orange Menace just so she can avoid even more PR hits from the genocide she's currently allowing her military to conduct. At least, that's what I'd imagine, as a reasonable, civilized person.

Meanwhile, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell the Trump USDA to abandon its effort to roll back school lunch nutrition standards, then Moms Rising still helps you do that. I'm old enough to remember when the phrase "school lunch nutrition standards" would get laughs from kids and adults alike, but the standards the Obama Administration put in place back in 2014 have actually helped kids get more fruit and vegetables in their diet and have actually helped get junk food out of schools. Of course you already know the key word in the previous sentence for the Republican party is "Obama," and anything with Mr. Obama's name on it must be erased from history. That's not just the Trump Administration's problem, either -- Congress has been hot to repeal the standards since they regained full control in 2015, even though doing so would make them look, you know, objectively pro-childhood obesity. But they don't get all the say around here -- we do.

Finally, the Pennsylvania state Supreme Court ruled that the state's Congressional district map "clearly, plainly, and palpably" violates the state constitution, and gave the legislature about 2 1/2 weeks to submit a new map -- so now's as good a time as any to let Common Cause help you to tell your Pennsylvania state legislator to pass HB 722/SB 22, which would reform the state's redistricting process. If the politicians have proven anything, it's that we can't trust them to draw legislative districts that put the people's needs over their own -- but taking it out of the legislature's hands and putting it into the hands of an independent commission (as HB 722/SB 22 would do) would give us a better chance at avoiding the evil of gerrymandering. We shouldn't let legislators draw districts that split counties and cities apart (let alone districts that exclude single houses and sides of streets!) out of their greed for continued and undeserved power.

Action: suppression of free speech, and offshore drilling.

If you've missed previous opportunities to tell our Department of Justice to drop absurd felony rioting charges against over 200 individuals who may or may not have been protesting the Trump inauguration, then Free Press still helps you do that. The idea that a journalist would serve up to 70 years for trying to get a story is bad enough, but now add the notion that medics and mere passers-by would also get that kind of sentence. Hopefully no civilized person would assert that some people just get swept up when other people are violent, because our Founders sure wouldn't. And hopefully no civilized person thinks "disruption" is a liberal phenomenon, not when teabaggers went to townhalls in 2009 with nothing but disruption in mind. A state that's sure of itself doesn't need to put innocent people in jail for decades on end just to demonstrate its fealty to "law and order." What a shame that phrases like "a state that's sure of itself," which I normally only use for foreign governments, I now have to use to describe the Trump Administration. But they ain't the boss of us; we are.

Meanwhile, our Department of the Interior wants to dramatically expand offshore oil drilling, because of course they do. Not to provide jobs for oil rig workers, either -- the Trump Administration only admires executives, and only aims to enrich executives, and no executive would create a job unless circumstances compelled them to do so. And this will be TEH BIGGESTZ AND TEH MOST BYOOTIFULZ DRILLINGZ EXPANSIONZ EVERZ!!!!!, not seven years after the Deepwater Horizon spill nearly destroyed the Gulf of Mexico's ecosystem, and not five weeks after the largest spill in the Gulf since then. Still, since we live in a functioning democracy, and since we live in a civilization where law and order still matters, the Trump Administration must take public comments about their plan, and the price of ignoring overwhelming public opposition won't necessarily just be bad PR, but could also include getting smacked down in a court of law. So Environmental Action helps you tell the Trump Administration to abandon its offshore drilling plan.

Around the table: about the folly of obsessing over civility, and other lessons.

You could find a hundred articles describing how stupid the Republican tax cut plan is, but here's just one, from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. In order: no the U.S. is not "the most-taxed country" but actually one of the least-taxed, no corporations are not "overtaxed" since they can buy loopholes from their Congressfolk seemingly at will, and yes the rich will accrue most of the benefits from the Republicans' tax cut plan. Oh, and no repealing the Estate tax won't "benefit truckers." I guess in a roomful of zombies he'd have said it'd "benefit zombies."

Let's not give George W. Bush too much credit for obliquely criticizing the Trump Administration for fomenting nativism and isolationism, not merely because opposition to "free" trade isn't automatically racist, but because his toadies spent years telling us we were traitors and terrorist-sympathizers and haters of America and he had not word one to say about any of that. And when they crossed that line, they made it easier for their successors to cross more lines. (Of course, Mr. Obama's own commitment to civility is mainly a way of letting a lot of wrongdoers off the hook -- mainly banksters and torturers.)

Wisconsin Governor/King of Corporate Welfare Scott Walker starts gearing up to run for a third term. And though the Foxconn imbroglio will blow up in Wisconsin's face sooner or later, he will benefit from both a very low unemployment rate and his own considerable political skills. And the Democrats will no doubt run a get-beyond-partisanship, let's-all-get-along center-right loser, and no wave can bring that boat to shore.

After exposing Mr. Trump's questionable methods of "consoling" a dead soldier's family, Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL)'s office has to send constituent calls to voicemail after getting thousands of calls, a striking number of them threats against their person. I am not looking forward to hearing the twisted reasoning of right-wingers who still insist that TEH LIBRULZ ARE TEH REAL VIOLENTZ!!!!! And if Ms. Wilson holds even one town hall after this, she'll have outclassed virtually every one of her colleagues across the aisle. (By the way, if you're about to leave a rage-filled comment about this matter, please read this first.)

Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore took $1,000 from something called the Foundation to Defend the First Amendment, which turns out to be one of the many slush funds of a now-deceased Nazi wannabe named Willis Carto. This should inspire a Goofus and Gallant-style ad from his opponent: Doug Jones fights Nazis! Roy Moore takes their money! But if Mr. Jones has thought of it, I'm sure the national party is already working to convince him not to run it, because civility.

Trump Administration spokeshack Sarah Huckabee Sanders, responding to a reporter who actually asked tough follow-up questions, says it's "highly inappropriate" to "get into a debate with a four-star Marine general." I suppose she was trying to be funny, but she failed, instead coming off as someone who thinks reporters shouldn't "question" generals. Epistemologically speaking, it's assholes all the way down with this Administration.

Around the table: in which we are reminded of who the real weaklings and losers are in America.

Former Republican reminds us that "There is No Free Speech Crisis on Campus" -- only opportunistic right-wingers who were uninterested in going to Berkeley a year ago, until they realized they might get unearned attention for attracting protestors. Meanwhile, Adam Serwer at The Atlantic reminds us that too many on the right "insist() those on the left are sensitive snowflakes who cannot sustain a dissenting view," but "simultaneously angrily demand() that the state and society sanction the left for the expression of political views it finds distasteful." In other words, right-wingers are weaklings. It really can't be said enough.

Adam Johnson reminds us that the "liberal" media has virtually ignored the matter of two journalists facing decades in prison on bogus felony rioting charges, merely because they covered the protests at the Trump inauguration. So reporters are failing to report on the reporters who face jail time for reporting on the same Administration that reporters have warned would stamp out unfavorable reporting? The hypocrisy here is just icing on the cake, really.

You already know the "tax cuts create jobs" argument is a total myth, but here comes Hedrick Smith to buttress your knowledge with some deep, deep support. When fewer than one in four multinational corporations say they'll invest their tax cut windfall in job creation, when corporations that buy tax cuts from Congress don't hire more workers as a result, and when corporations spend more and more money on stock manipulation and less and less on research and development, it's really no wonder that so many Americans look at corporations and say why do those assholes deserve a tax cut?

President Trump has been treated a bit unfairly, for once, after twittering that Puerto Rico was already having a tough time of it with debt and infrastructure issues -- but of course he contributed to that state of affairs by sticking Puerto Rico with tens of millions of dollars of that debt when his golf course failed there. And that tells you what kind of "infrastructure" plan he'd go for -- the kind that makes executives rich when the infrastructure doesn't get built. Always they say "make shareholders whole" when they ought to be saying make taxpayers whole.

After Sen. Luther Strange's completely unsurprising loss in the Alabama Republican Senate primary runoff, erstwhile Strange supporter Donald Trump deletes all his twitterings supporting Mr. Strange. He just can't be associated with a "loser," can he? You know what that means: it means he's deathly afraid everyone will find out that he is a loser. And at that moment -- perhaps when we finally get to see his tax returns and find out he's really dirt poor -- I suppose we'll have a massive terrorist attack so we can "rally around our President." Hey, if I thought of it, you know they have.

Finally, Playboy founder Hugh Hefner has died at the age of 91. Even if we put aside his magazine's relentless objectification of women, the victory of libertarian values ("anti-censorship," "consumerist," "hedonistic") attributed in part to Mr. Hefner's work is not entirely a positive thing, even if it allows us to cuss more or talk politics at work. We don't need to live in a world where everyone needs to wear a gray flannel suit to their job, but worrying about the stultifying conformity of wearing gray flannel suits to your job was a luxury in a society where federal tax policy all but mandated full employment; now, in a society where federal tax policy lets CEOs do pretty much what they like, we worry about the next health care crisis breaking us financially or the long-term effects of our household debt, and in this we have not created a more perfect union.

Around the table: how *not* to interrogate a Senator at a townhall, and other lessons.

President Trump comes to agreement with Democrats on a deal to increase the debt limit and finance our government's operations into mid-December. Congressional Republicans could still scuttle it, I suppose, but I feel compelled to note that this "deal" actually takes pressure off Republicans, who may now devote far more time to their tax "reform" scam. (Also, Sen. Heitkamp doesn't really imagine aligning herself with Mr. Trump will protect her seat come 2018, does she? Unless she magically transforms into an economic populist, she's toast no matter what.)

Tom Englehardt at TomDispatch, noting that Donald Trump's favorite generals have survived a lot of turnover in his Administration, reminds us that they're all veterans of a failed-and-still-failing policy, the "war on terror." Gen. McMaster, widely perceived as a voice of relative sanity in the Administration, has said the "war on terror" will go on forever because "(t)his enemy is dedicated to our destruction," though I wouldn't blame you for thinking there are other reasons this war would go on forever. Still, failing upward has been a pretty permanent condition in America if you're lucky enough to be a member of Our Glorious Elites -- recall the various banksters and bankster-enablers Barack Obama picked to get us out of the mess they made!

From the "Stupid Liberals Not Helping" file: apparent liberal activist asks Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) -- doing a rare townhall meeting with constituents and Democratic and Republican party poobahs -- if he can "confirm whether or not your daughter, Bridget, has been kidnapped," then gets ushered out by the TV studio broadcasting the townhall. Seems the interrogator was trying to make a point about DACA and family members suddenly getting deported, but Jesus Mary and Joseph there was just no other way to do that? He couldn't have made that point after saying something about DACA? All this moron did was get attention for himself and sympathy for a Senator who wouldn't otherwise get it, and I bet Mr. Toomey is a head-in-a-jar before he holds another townhall. Which leads me to wonder if his interrogator was actually a right-wing agent provocateur.

Kanawha County (WV) prosecutors drop charges against Dan Heyman, arrested for the horrible crime of asking HHS Secretary Tom Price questions at the state Capitol in May. If you advocated with County authorities for this result, go get yourself a Buffalo chicken cheese steak, or whatever else you like -- and then prepare yourself for future similar insults against our democracy and our civilization.

NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds well over half of Americans "comfortable with the nation becoming more diverse and tolerant of different lifestyles, gender roles, languages, cultures and experiences," but also finds some 24 percent of Americans, well, not comfortable. Some of the breakdowns are interesting (some 48% of seniors say they're "comfortable," which is a bit higher than I expected), but note well that this 24% figure maps pretty well onto my conviction that 25% of the electorate is bat-guano crazy. Note well, also, that they can only win elections with help from the not-crazy.

Action: defending freedom fighters across the world.

Access Now helps you helps you tell the government of the United Arab Emirates to release human rights blogger Ahmed Mansoor. What did Mr. Mansoor supposedly do? Well, let's look at the charges: he did time in 2011 for insulting the President, Vice President, and Crown Prince of the UAE, and now he's charged with "publish(ing) false information that damages the country's reputation" and "spread(ing) hatred and sectarianism" on social media. So, in order, that's one charge only a snowflake government would file and two charges snowflake governments make up to punish folks who resist them. On the latter two charges the UAE has held Mr. Mansoor in solitary for three months, without access to a lawyer or his family, apparently because the state's too good for law and order. So let's wield the Big Stick of Bad PR against the UAE. (And, ah, if you're tempted to say this Can't Happen Here, recall that some Americans want to outlaw "fake news" and our own snowflake President wants "tougher libel laws.")

Meanwhile, H.R. 1299, the Berta Caceres Human Rights in Honduras Act, still awaits Congressional consideration, so the Sierra Club helps you tell your Congressfolk to support human rights in Honduras by supporting H.R. 1299. H.R. 1299 would use that vaunted leverage we have that we never seem to use at the right time: it would cut off military and financial aid to soldiers or police in Honduras until such time as they stop killing activists. Berta Caceres is, of course, the famous Honduran activist who got killed in her own home last year, and since the 2009 coup, when right-wing militarists ousted the left-leaning and democratically-elected President of Honduras, over 100 such activists have died under, shall we say, mysterious circumstances. Our government may have sat back and watched the Honduran coup under President Obama, but that doesn't mean we stop doing the right thing, and it doesn't mean we wait for our government's permission to act, either.

Around the table: and now, for another exciting round of "When's That Terrorist Attack Coming?"

It's been a while since I've reminded everyone that the secondary reason Hillary Clinton lost (i.e., after "because centrists don't inspire anybody") was widespread voter suppression at the state level, so here's Greg Palast to write about Voter ID laws and the Interstate Crosscheck database on the occasion of Mr. Trump creating a "Voter Integrity Commission." I wonder how many folks named Kris Kobach are on voter rolls across this great land of ours. I mean, any of them could be voting twice on Election Day, right? That is the logic behind Mr. Kobach's Interstate Crosscheck, which helps unscrupulous state officials deregister folks with similar names -- and they don't even check middle names!

Janine Jackson at FAIR reminds us that "Big Media Need to Fight for the Right to Protest." Even in these times, that's a big hope, but let us contemplate not just the recent arrest of a journalist at the West Virginia courthouse for the nefarious crime of asking HHS Secretary Price the same question a couple of times, and the conviction of a Code Pink activist for laughing, but also the dozens of folks still being charged with Rioting While Wearing Black on Mr. Trump's inauguration day.

From the Economic Policy Institute we learn that wage theft deprives minimum-wage workers of $15 billion annually. That's just minimum-wage workers, too! Now right-wingers will quickly respond TAHT PROVEZ TEH MINIMUM WAGEZ DON'TZ WORKZ!!!!!, a logic they never used back when abortion was illegal. Also, too, that's $15 billion that would likely have gone right back into the economy, and kept a lot of minimum wage workers from utilizing state and federal welfare programs, meaning that preventing wage theft also saves the taxpayer money.

Surprise, surprise, the Dakota Access pipeline springs its first leak, dumping out 84 gallons of crude oil in South Dakota. And it happened over a month ago! And it's not even lugging large amounts of oil yet! And dig the state environmental scientist calling it a "release"! But then, who cares about clean drinking water for 17 million heartland Americans? President Trump demands tribute!

Finally, speaking of The Great Man, there he is suggesting that maybe we shouldn't have press conferences anymore because it's impossible for his spokeshacks to achieve "perfect accuracy." I'd be more sympathetic if the "liberal" media were hitting his Administration on rounding errors, but over the reason Mr. Trump sent his bodyguard to fire Mr. Comey? Waaaaaaah! That's our President -- so much stronger than those loser liberals, yet too weak to account to a largely pliant national press. So when's that terrorist attack coming?

Action: freedom of the press, media consolidation, and pro-pollution bills.

As you may know, West Virginia Capitol police arrested local journalist Dan Heyman on Wednesday after he repeatedly asked HHS Secretary Tom Price whether the Republican health care bill would include "being a target of domestic violence" as a "pre-existing condition." The charge? Willful disruption of state government processes. Mr. Heyman had to post $5,000 bail to get released; let's see you or I do that if we get arrested for confronting our leaders in public. This Administration demands to be disrupted by civilized Americans, but even the Capitol police can't agree on the details of the case. And dig Mr. Price saying "(t)hat gentleman was not in a press conference." Gosh, if you're going to put your ideas out there, you don't get to dictate to other people where and when and how they respond. All adults understand that, so why doesn't anyone in the Trump Administration seem to understand it? Oh, wait, that question answers itself. FAIR helps you tell West Virginia's government to drop all charges against Mr. Heyman.

Meanwhile, everyone wants me to tell Congress to investigate Russia's involvement in the recent U.S. election -- particularly now that we've learned that former FBI Director James Comey somehow isn't enough of a right-wing toady for President Trump's taste -- but I'd much rather see an investigation into how, exactly, Sinclair Broadcasting just got goodies from the FCC so they could buy up more local TV stations. I mean, yes, Mr. Trump sure is acting like a criminal every time Russia comes up, but when Mr. Trump's son-in-law tells everyone that his father-in-law's Presidential campaign "struck a deal" with Sinclair Broadcasting in order to get better news coverage, you have to wonder if they actually did something criminal. And when FCC Chair Ajit Pai lifts media consolidation restrictions that just so happen to benefit Sinclair, you have to wonder some more. Sinclair will soon reach almost 70% of American markets, and won't just be peddling right-wing ideology, but will be contributing directly to the further erosion of local media. The Justice Department's website is here.

Finally, because hamstringing clean air and clean water regulations is so wildly popular, the Pennsylvania Senate is mulling SB 561, which would (rather like the nefarious REINS Act, passed by the House earlier this year) require state House and Senate approval for any new regulation within 15 legislative days (or 90 calendar days, if the Assembly is out of session). Of course, here as elsewhere, the legislature already empowers the executive branch with the authority to issue regulations to meet legislative ends, but, you see, this particular legislature is dominated by pro-pollution Republicans and the executive branch is currently run by a relatively anti-pollution Democrat, so of course the legislative branch needs special rights in this case. Seriously, Republicans are like a bad baseball team that, after losing a game, whines that it's not fair that their opponents didn't give them six extra innings. So the Sierra Club helps you tell your Pennsylvania state Senator to reject SB 561 and protect our right not to breathe crappy air and drink crappy water.

Action: fighting the oppression of journalists, the sale of private data, and the abuse of animals.

First things first. You may have seen the work of Egyptian photojournalist Mahmoud Abu Zeid, better known as Shawkan, in such outlets as Time and BBC.com, but the Egyptian government has held him in detention for over three years now, torturing him the whole time. Holding a prisoner that long without charges is itself illegal in Egypt, but no matter -- the government finally filed half a dozen charges against him, including possession of a weapon, illegal assembly, murder, and attempted murder, but you could be excused for thinking his real "crime" was documenting the Rabaa massacre, where Egyptian government forces killed at least 800 protestors. Of course, protesting doesn't merit the death penalty, anywhere, at any time -- I wonder how many good Americans will remember that in the coming months and years -- and documenting government oppression doesn't merit criminal charges of any kind, particularly the trumped-up kind. Hence Amnesty International helps you tell the Egyptian government to free Shawkan. Not incidentally, Shawkan has contracted Hepatitis C -- for which he's had a hard time getting medical treatment! -- but the Egyptian government has freed other political prisoners suffering from Hep C. Egypt can't even be consistent in how it oppresses its people! It's hard out there for a pimp.

Meanwhile, closer to home, big telecom corporation AT&T has been selling its analyses of your private call data to law enforcement agencies via its Hemisphere project -- and this is true whether you're an AT&T customer or not! (The chances are pretty good that you call AT&T customers or make calls on AT&T-built infrastructure on occasion.) Naturally AT&T hid what it was doing from, because this is immoral coming and going -- a corporation selling your private data and taxpayer money going to buy it! AT&T adds close to four billion records to its database every day, and no use hoping that law enforcement is taking on much more data than it can handle, because searching for data isn't anywhere near as hard as people might think, and desperate states will go a long way to hurt people (just like Egypt has, above). Hence Access Now helps you tell AT&T to stop selling your private information to law enforcement. No use trying to tell me that we need these kinds of tools to foil terrorists now-more-than-ever. You know what kind of tools foil terrorists? The kind of tools that promote real independence for Americans -- higher-paying jobs, good homes with less debt -- which are exactly the kinds of tools corporations are constantly trying to destroy, because then you'll be less dependent on them.

Finally, Dan McKernan of Chelsea, MI has started a petition on Change.org which helps you tell Michigan state Sen. Joe Hune (R-22) and state Rep. Gretchen Driskell (D-52) to fight the continuing abuse of animals at factory farms by opposing HB 5987. HB 5987 would extend the phase-out of battery cages in Michigan by five years, but this phase-out is already a 10-year process, passed by the state legislature seven years ago, and Michigan is the first state in the nation to mandate that factory farms phase out the kinds of cages that force animals into confined spaces for their entire lives -- not so food prices can be lower, mind you, but so factory farm executives can gild the plumbing in their 19th vacation homes. Of course HB 5987 has a lot of industry support, and as long as big ag corporations can hold the threat of "less food" or "higher prices" over our heads, bills like HB 5987 will have a good chance of passing. The only things we have going for us, I guess, are our voices, and our tradition as civilized people who hate being needlessly cruel to animals for profit. But I'll take that -- big ag corporations are prisoners of their hunger for money, but we're free people.

Around the table: the return of "seditious libel"! And other absurdities.

In light of, ah, recent events, ProPublica helpfully reminds us about their Sept. 26 article concerning Donald Trump's apparent zeal to bring back "seditious libel" laws, which would prevent our media from criticizing Dear Leader. Sadly, you know as well as I do that the "liberal" media has shit the bed of our democracy so badly, with its thirst for constant drama and its enabling of stupid ideas and stupid people, that many good Americans aren't rooting for them against Mr. Trump, and may not even care if he cuts them off at the knees. Maybe if the "liberal" media does its damn job, things might get better.

Michael P. Lynch at the New York Times reminds us of the most deleterious effect of all the "fake news" you can get on the internet these days: not that it convinces good folks of false things, but that it confuses good folks just enough so they don't accept truth, and makes good people simply throw up their hands and walk away from their duty to discern the truth. Indeed, I'd argue that Donald Trump throws so much fecal matter at the wall for precisely the same effect -- to confuse you, wear you down, and make you give up. (However, I remain skeptical that "information bubbles" are really as damaging as the "liberal" media likes to tell us -- these "information bubbles" do, after all, decrease the "liberal" media's power to create their own information bubble which would include everyone.)

Davey Alba at WIRED discusses how Facebook's recent problems accurately tracking advertising metrics has "expos(ed) cracks in the basic assumptions about the superiority of digital advertising." I'm no expert in this subject (ahem!), but counting clicks on Facebook pages more or less as clicks on your original website seems like a pretty basic mistake to make. It would be best (also ahem!) to get your business outside the Facebook bubble somewhat, even if one out of five inhabitants of planet Earth check in every day -- or to use Facebook to maximize and facilitate contact with actual people outside Facebook, which is always (it's seemed to me, anyway) its best use.

Ho hum, Donald Trump alleges that the only reason Hillary Clinton has received (at this writing) 2 million more votes in the popular vote than he did is that "millions" of people voted illegally. I guess Jeff Sessions will hunt those millions of people down, except, of course, that he won't -- in fact, I can imagine a time when I might actually feel sorry for Mr. Sessions because, like Tha Bush Mobb's Justice Department, he won't find more than a couple dozen, though that'll make his boss look bad. And, ah, didn't Mr. Trump say the election was fair after all those anti-Trump protestors took to the streets? Apparently he thinks the truth is whatever he wants it to be, whenever he wants it to be -- why, it's just like the Bush Mobb, except perhaps more obnoxious.

Finally, Yale history professor Timothy Snyder writes about "What You -- Yes, You -- Can Do to Save America from Tyranny." It's an inspiring 20-lesson list, one that admits the possibility that a Trump Administraiton would "plan" a terrorist attack "in order to consolidate power" (I suppose he'd do better at that than Mr. Bush did, particularly since his Administration will be more densely-packed with evil people!), but also reminds us that there is much we can do to "(s)et a good example of what America means for the generations to come."

Action: free speech in Turkey, and fracking wastewater dumping in the ocean.

Amnesty International helps you tell the Turkish government to repeal laws mandating jail time for things like "insulting the Turkist state." The latest news hook is the impending trial (the latest over over 100!) of Turkish lawyer/journalist Eren Keskin for criticizing the military's killing of a 12-year-old boy; you'd think criticizing that would be a no-brainer, but in Turkey, apparently, the government actually prefers citizens with no brains. Turkey, of course, has a long and storied history of imprisoning journalists for criticizing the government, and that's only gotten worse lately, as an apparent failed coup (or dare I say false flag operation? Now, see, in America I can say that!) has spurred Turkish President Erdogan to be even more repressive than he's been in the past. And of course Ms. Keskin has a long history of speaking out for justice, particularly for Turkey's Kurdish minority -- you know, the same folks who have been fighting back pretty well against ISIS? Sometimes we forget the rest of the world does not have a First Amendment protecting its citizens from being put in jail by their governments merely for speaking out. Still, the Big Stick of Bad PR is not to be trifled with, even by the aspiring Sultan-with-absolute-power of Turkey.

Meanwhile, Environmental Action helps you tell President Obama to ban dumping fracking wastewater into our oceans. The Bureau of Ocean Management now allows this practice, even though fracking wastewater typically contains many toxins and carcinogens, like lead, benzene, and chromium-6. If you're not concerned about the cleanliness of ocean water because no one drinks it, consider two things: one, that San Diego's effort to desalinate ocean water is actually going pretty well, and two, that other creatures live in the oceans, creatures who will suffer because of the crap we're dumping in their habitats, and that we depend on a lot of those creatures in some way, whether for food (and the industries that make them into food) or for controlling other predatory species in the ocean. Consider, also, that we've done a pretty bad job predicting the harm our pollution has done so far. And finally, consider that the only reason we're not moving more quickly to a renewable energy grid, as Ralph Nader has said, is because no one can own the sun or the wind. You'd think owning the technology to convert sunlight and wind into energy would be enough, but some people can never get enough. However, a civilized society ensures those people don't get all the say about everything.

Around the table: media fact-checking, class-action lawsuits, extortionate drug prices, sentencing reform, and more Trumpian whining.

First, we take the wayback machine to three days ago, when the Trump campaign said that it's not the business of debate moderators -- or, indeed, the media -- to be "virtual fact-checkers." Or real fact-checkers, I suppose! I only bring this up to remind you that during Tha Bush Mobb years, right-wingers said pretty much the same thing -- that is, they literally declared that the media should be mere stenographers of the Bush Administration's pronouncements, and never tell readers whether or not those pronouncements were true. Because TEH WAR ON TEH TERRORZ!!!!!, you see. People who fear the truth always act like this -- and they never demand so little of the media when a Democrat's in the Oval Office.

Two ex-employees have sued Wells Fargo on behalf of current and former employees, not only for wrongful termination and unlawful business practices but also wage theft (including overtime pay for employees forced to work off-the-clock to meet Wells Fargo's absurd account quotas). Right-wingers in the Senate love bashing Wells Fargo now, but recall that these are the same folks who try to kill the class-action lawsuit in America by constantly calling it "frivolous." Corporations still file four out of every five lawsuits in America, but I never hear right-wingers say anything about that -- unless you point it out to them, of course, and then they act shocked that you would think such a thing about a matter they never discuss.

Remember hearing that Mylan "only" makes $100 on every EpiPen double-pack it sells? Now we learn that Mylan underestimated that figure by at least $60 per double-pack -- by actually counting corporate taxes it doesn't pay! Mylan arrived at the $100 figure in part by assuming it pays a 37.5% corporate rate, which of course it doesn't, not least because it's "relocated" to the Netherlands. Mylan's spokeshack responds, "(t)ax is typically included in a standard profitability analysis" blah blah freaking blah. And here you thought corporations counted profits by subtracting actual spending from actual revenues.

Politico reports that House Speaker Paul Ryan would really, really like to move bipartisan sentencing reform legislation, but is kinda afraid to partly because of the Trump Monster. Why I doubt this is true: one, most of the House's farthest-right members are in districts so gerrymandered they can't lose them; two, those downballot Republicans who are in competitive races can only benefit by differentiating themselves from the Trump Monster; and three, the objections raised by far-right Republicans could easily be answered by referring them to the bills already passed out of Judiciary. Also, a politician's default setting is "to lie."

Finally, after a debate performance so ill-received that even freaking John Podhoretz's negative review made me laugh out loud, Donald Trump wonders aloud to Fox and Friends if the "terrible" microphone he had to use during that debate was "set up that way on purpose." Of course he doesn't "want to believe in conspiracy theories," but he just has to wonder. But then, that's what winners do, right? Blame their bad performances on the equipment? Seriously, don't believe the notion that Our Glorious Elites don't want him to win. Of course they want him to win, because he's the personification of all their evil values (you know -- always demanding something for nothing, skimping out on your obligations to others, whining about misfortune you clearly deserve), and if he wins, he legitimizes those values. But they also win if he loses, because then they can pretend those values were his and his alone -- and then they'll just wait for the 2018 midterms, after which point Democrats will likely be unable to even filibuster bills in the Senate.

Around the table: lessons about bad government (plus the Pope shaming *all* bad governments).

Jeff Bryant, writing at the OurFuture blog, reminds us that "Breaking Government Hurts Children, in unsafe drinking water, bad public schools, and other ways. And of course the kind of person who'd run Gateway into the ground and then run Michigan into the ground would never say he wants to hurt children -- he'd say he just "does what he has to do," which is cut costs (and services, though he'll avoid saying that, too). And we tolerate this from those "entrepreneurs" who constantly tell us they are our boldest and brightest.

Jennifer Granick, writing at the Just Security blog, reminds us that oversight of government surveillance should be "President-proof," by reminding us how well all the "layers of accountability" worked when George W. Bush was President. If you heard me argue, back in the old days, that you should oppose warrantless wiretapping if you're OK with George W. Bush doing it but not OK with Hillary Clinton doing it, because all it takes is one bad apple to wreck a country, then you'll likely find the sentiment quite sympathetic.

Saudi Arabia sentences well-known journalist Alaa Brinji to five years in jail, an eight-year travel ban, and a five-figure fine -- for a handful of twitterings supporting a woman's right to drive, among other good causes. Naturally, using Twitter wasn't the charge -- actual charges included "insulting the rulers of the country," "accusing security officers of killing protestors," and the ever-noxious "violating cyber-crime laws." And this nation of weak rulers who routinely imprison and kill dissenters is our ally! Just like Turkey, which is closing newspapers and oppressing the only folks successfully resisting ISIS as we speak.

Ho hum, a Ted Cruz national security "advisor" tells the world she thinks we should emulate Joe McCarthy in preventing ISIS infiltration into our government, or something. Let the record show that the Republicans' "establishment" candidate for 2016 endorses the notion that Sen. McCarthy conducted anything but a witch hunt in the 1950s. Besides which, how much infiltration will ISIS ever need to do if we're going to respond to their attacks by repressing our own citizens?

April Glaser, writing at Wired, describes "How the Rich and Powerful Use Tech to Silence Activists." Sympathetic as I am (obviously!) to the good that social media can do, I also remember that when a million good Iranians took to the streets to protest the results of the 2009 elections there, I cautioned the smartphones-are-game-changers crowd that the state has smartphones, too. And it has worse -- not just technology like the Stingray, but "low-tech" controls like ag-gag laws.

Finally, Pope Francis shames world governments by washing the feet of a dozen refugees. At least, world governments would be shamed, except that in our sick, immoral, and decadent society, it's OK to deflect such deserved shame by, say, calling the Pope a Communist. Rhetoricians call such an attack an ad hominem attack -- it's more popularly known as a personal attack, ad hominem literally meaning "to the man" in Latin. Folks then say such attacks are "just opinions," but until such opinions' holders demonstrate they can argue their way out of a paper bag (i.e., by pointing out exactly where the Pope has advocated complete central planning by the state or constant police surveillance of the citizenry, two actual attributes of Communist states), such opinions deserve no respect merely because they exist.

Action: freedom of the press, TV drug ads, and postal banking.

Just Foreign Policy joins with MoveOn to help you tell our President and Congress to pressure Turkey to free two journalists who reported on allegations of arms smuggling by the Turkish National Intelligence Organization to Syrian rebels. A Turkish court charged Messrs. Dündar and Gül with spying and "divulging state secrets" last week for reporting published in Cumhuriyet back in May, and given that Reporters Without Borders ranks Turkey a mere 149th out of 180 nations in press freedom, it's not difficult to surmise that the Turkish government won't be treating the two men particularly well in detention. What does Turkey have to fear, you have to wonder? It can't be that folks will think they're trying to topple Assad, a leader perhaps not even beloved by his own mother. Perhaps they're afraid folks will find out they're helping ISIS, and not even deliberately, either -- when arms go to war zones, they all too frequently don't wind up where they're supposed to. Whatever the reason, the good citizens of Turkey deserve to know what their government's up to.

Meanwhile, Denise Kinney, of Gig Harbor, WA, has started a Change.org petition which helps you tell Congress to ban advertising of pharmaceutical drugs on TV. Big pharmaceutical corporations spend more then $4 billion annually on drugs, and you better believe they cite that as yet another reason your drugs have to cost so much. Further, the only other nation that allows such drug ads on TV is New Zealand, and the American Medical Association has called for a ban on such ads. I'm not the sort of fellow who reflexively defers to experts; I'm not even the sort of fellow who's afraid to find out about health-related matters on his own. But I'm old enough to remember when you simply didn't see TV ads about specific drugs, and I also see the problem in constantly urging consumers to tell their doctors to try them out on drugs that may not work and may actually do them harm. And I keep coming back to all that money spent on advertising and wonder why it can't be spent on research -- and I keep thinking Big Pharma would rather they, and not your doctor, controlled what drugs you get.

Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell the U.S. Postmaster General to institute postal banking services like check-cashing, bill-paying, and fee-free ATMs, then Sign for Good still helps you do that. Why should the U.S. Post Office provide these services? Because they're damn good at what they do, that's why -- no, they're only losing money because Congress mandated that they pre-fund their pension fund 85 years in advance, a requirement Congress makes of precisely zero corporations or other federal entities -- and because banksters, who always whine about "unfair" competition from the government, don't actually want to go into urban and rural areas that need banking services. But post offices can provide good, basic banking services, and thus prevent urban and rural communities from falling prey to payday lenders and their death-spiral of debt. Best of all, the Postmaster General doesn't need permission from Congress or the President to start basic banking services. Still, she could certainly use our encouragement, and we certainly shouldn't be parsimonious about giving it.

Action: freedom of the press, and solar power for working families.

One day after the first anniversary of Michael Brown's death, St. Louis County filed charges against two journalists originally arrested while covering the Ferguson protests. The charges? Trespassing and interfering with a police officer, officially, but really for covering protests and continuing to film police officers after being ordered out of the McDonald's in which they were working. In Veracruz they kill reporters who oppose the government, but American politicians who twist the law to silence reporters shouldn't congratulate themselves for being so much better. At least one of the reporters works for the Washington Post, which raises the possibility that the "liberal" media might actually get upset about it. In the meantime, Free Press helps you tell Robert McCulloch, the St. Louis County prosecutor, drop the charges against the reporters. You remember that name? That's right, he's the same county prosecutor who somehow couldn't file any charges against the officer who shot Michael Brown. So the chances are pretty good he doesn't care what you think. Tell him anyway.

Meanwhile, H.R. 3041/S. 1713, the Low Income Solar Act, would expand financial assistance (via loans and grants) to low-income homeowners, affordable housing projects, and community solar facilities (though more than half of the assistance would go to low-income homeowners). The bill's price tag is a bit low for my taste -- $200,000,000 annually for the next 15 years, and if the "liberal" media describes that sum as ZOMG THREE BILLYUNZ OF TEH DOLLARZ!!!!!, that would still be one billion dollars fewer than oil corporations will receive in corporate welfare handouts just this year. Still, it's a good thing to direct some money to the kinds of folks who simply don't have money lying around to pay the start-up costs of converting to solar power -- and these folks also include, by the bill's reckoning, folks in rural areas, Appalachian areas, Native American nations, and areas with little sunlight. So CREDO helps you tell your Congressfolk to support the Low Income Solar Act, and bring more energy independence to working families.

Action: murdered journalists in Mexico, medicines from Cuba, and the Great Barrier Reef.

Mexico risks becoming known the world over as the place where journalists go to die after the murder of Rubén Espinosa nearly two weeks ago. Mr. Espinosa is the 13th journalist to die in the state of Veracruz, in the southern part of Mexico, since 2011 -- when Veracruz's governor, who has been in the habit of threatening reporters, came to power. A Veracruz state official may have even threatened Mr. Espinosa directly -- "stop taking pictures if you don't want to end up like Regina," the official supposedly said, referring to another murdered journalist, Regina Martínez. Yet thousands of good Mexican citizens have not been afraid to take to the streets in protest of these murders, so Avaaz helps you demand that the Mexican government investigate the deaths of Mr. Espinosa and the four others who appear to have been tortured and murdered along with him, and also that they investigate the Governor of Veracruz. There is no hope for freedom of the press in Mexico -- or, indeed, freedom -- if politicians can murder journalists without paying the price for their crimes.

Meanwhile, the normalization of relations between the United States and Cuba means that Americans can now bring back $400 in goods from Cuba, including $100 in cigars and rum, when traveling. However, Americans can't bring back medicines with them, and Cuban scientists have apparently been rather innovative over the years -- over 150,000 patients worldwide have received the Cuban drug Heberprot, which could do a lot to help restore gangrenous tissue in diabetic patients, and thus help them save limbs that would otherwise have to be amputated. Meanwhile, the one FDA-approved drug for this purpose, Regranex, rarely gets prescribed because it might well cause cancer. So Roots Action helps you tell President Obama to allow the FDA to test Cuban drugs and, if the FDA approves them, to allow good Americans to import them into the United States. Note well that we're certainly not asking for Cuban medicines to be imported into America willy-nilly -- the medicines should only come here if we can verify they're safe and effective. That's what civilized societies do, after all.

Finally, the good news out of Australia is that the Federal Court of Australia has overturned the Australian Environment Minister's approval of the Carmichael Coal Mine, on the grounds that the approval didn't properly account for two endangered species found in the area, so the Sierra Club helps you tell Australia's Environment Minister to reject the Carmichael project once and for all, and thus protect the Great Barrier Reef from further destruction. Approving the coal mine doesn't end at allowing the mines to be dug, as you know -- it also involved dredging Great Barrier Reef waters, which would have damaged the one-of-a-kind reef and the fragile ecosystems that depend on it. Despite its far-right bent, Australia's government has some incentive to reject the project now -- it was depending on America's Export-Import Bank to provide much of the funding, but Congress hasn't been able to reauthorize the Ex-Im Bank, so the money may not come, which could give the Australian government a free pass to appear greener than they really are. But I care less about short-term victories than about the space to win long-term ones.

Action: torture in Uzbekistan, campaign finance reform, and better SEC Commissioners.

Muhammad Bekzhanov has been imprisoned for 16 years in Uzbekistan, nominally for (get your surprised face ready) committing acts of terrorism, but more likely for heading up the newspaper of the political party Erk, a party banned by the state. Mr. Bekzhanov tried to get asylum in neighboring Ukraine, but instead found himself extradited back to Uzbekistan, then tortured into confessing to several bombings. His torture has included being beaten by rubber truncheons and plastic bottles filled with water (if you think that last item's not so bad, remember how much water weighs), and also given electric shocks and suffocated; it's been bad enough over the years that he's now deaf in one ear and has contracted TB, and he told his wife "the only thing he asked of God was to let him die." Now, if Barack Obama did that to Tea Party leaders, or if George W. Bush had done that to anti-war protestors, you wouldn't stand for that, right? So why stand for it in Uzbekistan? They get away with it because they think no one notices. Amnesty International helps you convince them otherwise, and tell them to stop torturing, and start freeing, political prisoners.

Meanwhile, H.J.Res. 22 would amend the U.S. Constitution to allow state and federal governments to "regulate and set reasonable limits on the raising and spending of money by candidates and others to influence elections." It would also allow said governments to "distinguish between natural persons and corporations or other artificial entities created by law, including by prohibiting such entities from spending money to influence elections." The bill has 126 co-sponsors, but, sadly, all but one are Democrats, and the lone Republican, North Carolina's incorrigible Walter Jones, often seems like he exists to be a thorn in his party's side, not that I generally oppose such a course of action. That's especially unfortunate in a land where, as the New York Times has told us, more than four of five Americans think our campaign finance laws need at least "fundamental" rebuilding, and nearly four of five believe that the law should limit the spending both of individuals and "groups not affiliated with a campaign." So Public Citizen helps you tell your House Rep to support the amendment (or thank them if they already support it).

Finally, President Obama has the chance to nominate two (of five) SEC Commissioners this year; one has to be a Republican, because Republican Daniel Gallagher is resigning, but the other is Luis Aguilar, whose term expires this month. And though neither one of the nominees has to be toadies for Wall Street banksters, this seems to be the direction in which Mr. Obama is leaning -- which, I know, right? It's so hard to believe. Like the FCC, the SEC has five Commissioners, evenly divided between the political parties except for the SEC Chair, who obviously serves at the pleasure of the President -- though perhaps not the American people, so disappointing has Mary Jo White's tenure as SEC Chair been. Hence CREDO helps you tell President Obama to nominate folks to the SEC who'll fight (to use one of his favorite turns of phrase from his first term) someone who works for Main Street, not Wall Street. The SEC does have one proven reformer, Kara Stein, who has made the Volcker rule stronger and opposed the SEC's habit of giving out securities law waivers like they were candy. America is a big country, so it can't be that hard to find another one.

Action: anti-gay laws in Russia, paid family medical leave, and voting rights.

You've heard, no doubt, about the nefarious anti-gay law Russia passed in 2013, which makes it a crime to spread "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations." Now Russia has applied the law to journalist Elena Klimova (Russia oppressing a journalist? Why, that's unprecedented!), who started the website Children 404 to help gay teenagers struggling with oppression find each other and help each other. Apparently, even helping minors tell each other that it's OK to be gay falls under "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations." Hence Amnesty International helps you tell Russia to free Ms. Klimova and stop applying the law in such a brutish fashion. Just as an aside, the Norton Critical Edition of Anton Chekhov's Short Stories contains an essay by Maxim Gorky describing his acquaintance with Mr. Chekhov, who comes across as a relentlessly humane, decent, subtle, honest, and illuminated fellow. I try to remember it, and the promise it offers, whenever I think of Russia as an irredeemably backwards land, more brutish, even, than in the most fevered dreams of American extremists.

Meanwhile, H.R. 3712/S. 1810, the Family and Medical Insurance Leave Act (or FAMILY Act), would, essentially, convert the unpaid leave workers take under the Family Medical Leave Act into paid leave, for those folks who apply for such leave to the Social Security Administration. Folks on FMLA wouldn't get full pay if the FAMILY Act passes, but at least they wouldn't have to constantly choose between work and caring for themselves or children or other loved ones. And guess which nation is the only one of all the high-income nations to offer exactly zero paid leave under these conditions? That's right, the U.S. of A. The FAMILY Act would also, not incidentally, extend FMLA protections to domestic partners, including those in same-sex relationships. Let the haters crow about FMLA abuse, as if the only way to fix that is through taking everyone's benefits away, and not, say, to enforce the law and punish fraudsters. For fraudsters hurt all of us -- and give our enemies an excuse to take away what we've fought for. USAction helps you tell your Congressfolk to support the FAMILY Act.

Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell your Congressfolk to support H.R. 3899/S. 1945, the Voting Rights Amendment Act, then the People's Email Network still helps you do that. You remember why we need the Voting Rights Amendment Act, right? We need it because the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder, because they found the formula for determining which states/municipalities get extra scrutiny from the federal government to be outdated. But the Court also said Congress could substitute a new formula that would meet Constitutional scrutiny, and Congress would do that with the Voting Rights Amendment Act. The bill would apply extra scrutiny to changes in the law from states and municipalities that have broken federal election law five times in the previous 15 years -- meaning that, in theory, any state or municipality, and not just ones in the South, could come under additional scrutiny. That improves the law and addresses the Court's peculiar concern for the South. Hell, I'm not against pleasing everyone -- if you can.

Action: war with Syria, human rights in Eritrea, and poultry inspection.

Congress has come back to work; please feel free to boo, and when you're done, you may want to tell them how you feel about Mr. Obama's wish to attack Syria, using action tools from the Center for Constitutional Rights, Avaaz, and the People's Email Network. Now I was just looking around on the internet, as I do occasionally, and I saw that Secretary Kerry announced the release of videos from the August 21 chemical weapons attack in Syria. Then I clicked through to the Senate Intelligence Committee website hosting the videos, and saw this note: "Each of these 13 videos explicitly claim to show victims of a chemical or poison gas attack." So the videos "claim" to show victims of a chemical attack, and don't even assert, apparently, that you'll be able to blame the Syrian government for this attack -- wow, how Bush-league. (I also don't know why they said "explicitly," but maybe I'm just piling on.)

Meanwhile, Eritrea has been an independent nation for 20 years now, but it has a long way to go on its journey to self-sufficiency and freedom -- it has, apparently, built a vast underground network of torture centers and has "disappeared" over 10,000 good citizens, including journalists and members of religious organizations. Eritrea does, as a point of law, imprison those who don't practice one of the nation's four "registered" religions -- which exclude non-Sunni Muslim denominations and, since 2002, most Christian denominations as well -- while Reporters Without Borders has ranked Eritrea dead last among world nations in media freedom, right behind North Korea. But most people don't know much about Eritrea, and surely Eritrea wouldn't want the first thing everyone learns about it to be that it treats its dissenters so horribly, right? So Amnesty International helps you tell the Eritrean President to end the torture and detention in Eritrea.

Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell the USDA not to outsource its chicken inspection functions to the very poultry processing corporations who are making the chicken, then Food and Watch Watch helps you do that. In other news, federal prisons plan to turn over all the cell keys to the prisoners, and banking regulators are going to let banks ensure their derivatives don't crash the economy. OK, that second one's real, but no less absurd than the others. Seriously, who lets food-processing corporations police themselves? The most corporation-friendly Department of Agriculture we've ever had, of course. No, Mr. Obama's USDA is worse than Mr. Bush's -- why, even Tha Bush Mobb couldn't stomach continuing a similar self-inspection program for chicken makers, and for good reason: no inspectors will find the pus and feces and blood and bile on birds if they have to look at three birds per second.

For the last week, hundreds of thousands of good Turkish citizens have been peacefully protesting -- first, the planned closing of Taksim Gezi Park in Istanbul, and then their government's reaction. Their government has been beating them, kicking them, and using tear gas on them (sometimes even firing tear gas canisters into folks' homes!), while claiming that foreigners with their foreign social media have been foreignly corrupting Turkey with their foreignness, and also their foreignness. But since beating peaceful protestors is wrong, Amnesty International helps you tell the Turkish government to can it already. The Turkish government ought to be happy to see so many people out in the streets because they give a damn about what happens in their country, but they're not -- they're a government whose ruling party hasn't been seriously challenged in over ten years, and they've become more restrictive of its citizens' media and free speech rights as the years have gone on. So they might want to listen this time, or they'll become a relic with a quickness.

Did you know corporations could patent genes? Apparently they can, and they have patented over 40 percent of the human genome, even though typically you don't get to patent stuff that occurs in nature. But if some corporation or other has patented almost half your genes, that means said corporation can legally stop, say, your doctor from drawing your blood and testing any part thereof patented by someone else. This doesn't happen very often in practice, praise the Lord, but Myriad Genetics has patented two genes (BRCA1 and BRCA2) that can cause breast and/or ovarian cancer if they're mutated, and one in 400 women may carry the mutated gene. But you may never find out if you're one of them, because Myriad has been stopping any clinic that tests for breast or ovarian cancer from actually testing for those mutated genes. The Supreme Court is mulling whether to allow this madness to continue, but in the meantime the ACLU helps you tell the U.S. Patent Office to stop issuing genes for patents until the Court makes up its mind.

Meanwhile, the WalMart strikes continue in advance of the corporation's annual shareholders' meeting, and WalMart has responded by getting a restraining order from an Arkansas judge forbidding anyone from walking onto WalMart property unless they're shopping. Some of these shareholders might be shopping for somewhere else to put their money, maybe? So American Rights at Work and Jobs for Justice help you tell WalMart to make their workers' lives better. It ain't as if they ain't got the cash -- four Walton family members rank in the world's top 20 billionaires, with a collective worth of over $107 billion. I suppose some folks respond well, that must be how they got so rich! But they should look in the mirror and ask themselves: is that how we want to get rich? By cutting our workers' hours and making them work odd hours and paying them less than they need to live on so they have to get food stamps and Medicaid? Really, anyone can do that. But not everyone can go on strike when they're already living on the edge. That takes courage.

In late 2009, when the government of Yemen claimed responsibility for raining cluster bombs down on the village of al Majala -- which may have killed up to 14 al-Qaeda operatives, but definitely killed 41 villagers, over half of them children -- Yemeni journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye reported that Yemen didn't carry out the bombings, but our government did. And what's his reward for doing the right thing? A sham trial and five-year sentence in 2011 on vague terrorism-related charges. Local Yemeni pressure (see, it happens everywhere!) almost convinced the Yemeni President to release Mr. Shaye -- until our President "expressed concern" over his release. Well, he ain't the boss of us: Roots Action helps you tell both Mr. Obama and the Yemeni government to release Mr. Shaye. Not just because it's the right thing to do, but because that could be you or I one day, and it may not even take a Republican administration to bring it about.

Meanwhile, you may have heard that at least a hundred WalMart workers have gone on strike this morning, some of whom plan to remain on strike until WalMart's next shareholders' meeting on June 7. Workers have been striking all over WalMart's supply chain lately, but 500 WalMart workers struck on Black Friday (after being forced to attend a meeting advising against striking on Thanksgiving night), and a few Maryland workers struck again in early February. I've been told these striking workers are stupid because the economy is bad and they could be replaced rather easily in this economy. Replace the word "stupid" with the word "courageous" and I'd agree -- what is it about low wages, few benefits, and lousy hours do some folks find so excusable? One striking WalMart worker, Barbara Gertz of Colorado, has started a petition via CREDO that helps you tell WalMart's braintrust to make their workers' lives a bit more livable.

Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell Mr. Obama to ban fracking on federal lands, including our national parks and forests, Penn Environment still helps you do that. You know the story by now -- despite all the signs of hope we had seen from the Obama Administration that they'd propose tough rules that would protect our public lands from the destruction wrought by fracking, the Obama Administration wound up proposing weak rules that don't demand disclosure of fracking chemicals, don't force gas drilling corporations to secure their fracking waste, don't require frackers to keep a safe distance from homes, schools, and hospitals, and don't ban diesel fuel. And these are our lands! Contrary to what you may have heard from your Tea Party uncle, we don't oppose fracking on public lands because they're pretty and we're hippies. We oppose it because we use that land, and because we renew that land so that our children and our childrens' children may use it.

By now you've heard that our Department of Justice seized two months of phone records from over 20 AP phone lines -- including cell and home phone lines -- used by over 100 reporters. Wonder why they'd do that? Justice claims they're trying to find the source of a leak; the AP speculates the leak relates to a plot to carry a bomb on a plane, a plot our government allegedly foiled in early May. Maybe the Department of Justice really wanted that story to go out -- but intimidating reporters with overbroad, illegal investigations is a bad, bad way to do that. The "liberal" media seems shocked, SHOCKED! that this could happen in America; if you recall their relative silence over warrantless wiretapping, you might think they'll actually hurt like we do, now that it's being done to them! Perhaps that's too much to hope for, but still, duty is duty: both Free Press and CREDO help you tell our Attorney General to stop intimidating the press.

Meanwhile, Trader Joe's still refuses to deal with public pressure about selling antibiotic-raised meat, and worse, cranks out this jewel of spokeshackdom: "We understand the importance of our customers' decisions when it comes to their grocery shopping and do not presume to make choices for them." But they already choose what to sell in their stores! Aside from the absurd implication that some significant sliver of Trader Joe's customer base would only eat meat from miserable factory farm animals pumped full of antibiotics, they're not making Freedom Ponies by keeping this meat in their stores, they're doing the opposite -- selling antibiotic-raised meat insures that superbugs get stronger, and thus antibiotics become less effective, and thus people get sicker -- and thus less free. So Consumer Reports helps you call Trader Joe's and ask them to stop selling antibiotic-raised meat.