Thieves in the Temple.

Action: concerning government spying, prisoner abuse, FCC nominees, clean water, social media, and medical devices.

Long story short: tell your Congressfolk to repeal the USA PATRIOT Act, tell our Justice Department to investigate certain prison health care practices in an Arkansas county, tell your Senators to confirm President Biden's two FCC nominees, tell PA state legislators to stop trying to weaken clean water laws, tell your government to break up Facebook, and tell Amazon to stop classifying certain medical devices as sex toys. Use the tools in the upper right-hand corner of this page (or, if you're on a cellphone, the bottom of this page) to find your legislators' phone numbers and/or use the email/petition tools in the following paragraphs.

Both Daily Kos and Win Without War help you tell your Congressfolk to repeal the USA PATRIOT Act already. That law turned 20 earlier this week, and I'd joke that it's old enough to make serious mistakes now except that the law is a serious mistake. The USA PATRIOT Act did serious harm to our Fourth Amendment search-and-seizure protections -- warrants? Warrants are for losers! -- and not only has the USA PATRIOT act injured our freedoms, it's made us no safer from terrorism. Hell, January 6 taught us that! What makes a nation safer from terrorist attack? Working to create and maintain civilization at home, that's what, and freedom from state harassment is an important part of that work.

Color of Change helps you tell our Justice Department to investigate Washington County, Arkansas for prescribing ivermectin for prisoners with COVID-19. This is a DOJ matter, since our Constitution actually does require us to give prisoners the health care they need. And don't let your right-wing neighbors blather on about the "right to try," not when the state forces prisoners to take ivermectin. Ivermectin has serious side effects, including diarrhea, nausea, seizures, and those studies "proving" the efficacy of ivermectin for COVID-19? Either conducted on test tubes, not large enough to prove anything, or retracted due to data manipulation. Prisoners deserve real medical care. Yes, even though they're prisoners! A real civilization has enough confidence in its own strength to treat its prisoners like they're actual human beings.

Free Press helps you tell your Senators to confirm President Biden's two FCC Commissioner nominees. President Biden has nominated current interim FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel to become permanent Chair, and has nominated Gigi Sohn to fill the empty fifth Commissioner's spot; they'd do a good job, but if our Senate dallies -- and they'd better not, since the Senate majority is still at least nominally Democrat -- Ms. Rosenworcel's term as FCC Commissioner will end in January, and not only will the FCC will have only three Commissioners, two of those will be Republicans, and that means our FCC will do nothing, or only harmful things. Our FCC needs to bring net neutrality back, not least because big telecom corporations like shutting off firefighters' service in the middle of a wildfire, and surely will think of other evils to commit. So let's get on it.

Pennsylvania residents, take note: Penn Environment helps you tell your PA state legislator to reject legislation that would weaken state protections on our rivers and streams. Specifically, HB 1842/SB 545 would let big corporations decide whether to report their spills into our waters to our government, which would be like prohibiting anyone but a burglar from reporting a burglary. The bill also somehow fails to spell out that our Department of Environmental Protection (or DEP) can order polluters to clean up their messes; think of our state legislators mandating that parents couldn't order their children to clean their rooms because freedom. These Republican legislators, like the fascists they admire, want a government that bows to their corporate cronies -- not to you, like it should. That's why we gotta speak up.

Demand Progress helps you tell your Congressfolk and our federal regulators to break Facebook up already. Not just because Facebook is a monopoly -- joining another social network that Facebook doesn't already own is far more of a chore than it should be in a free society -- but also because Facebook abuses that monopoly power. Seems like every day we hear another story about how Facebook shoves QAnon content in the face of right-leaning folks, or how Facebook gives more weight to emojis than likes so that the content that enrages people more gets more traction in our social media feeds. The whole point of the internet was to help people find other people on their own; it certainly wasn't to wave content from right-wing assholes in our faces. If we want a good internet again, we need to break up Facebook.

Finally, Change.org helps you tell Amazon not to categorize certain medical devices as "sex toys." That's right, Amazon wants to call kegel weights and pelvic floor wands "adult products" or "sex toys," even though these devices actually help folks deal with pelvic pain -- particularly women who've given birth. I guess Amazon thinks they're "sex toys" because you insert them into your vagina or your anus, but you do that to get relief from pain, which is not the same thing as pleasure. And reclassifying these devices as "sex toys" means fewer customers will find them -- and the ones who do will be distracted into looking at actual sex toys. You also can't help but think if men more typically used these items, they wouldn't reclassify them so easily. So let's prompt Amazon to do better here.

Action: health care, immigration, and public lands.

The so-called "moderate" health care "reform" bill -- a.k.a. the Graham-Cassidy bill -- still stumbles through the hallways of the Senate like a zombie, threatening to take down the Affordable Care Act's pre-existing conditions ban through yet another clever loophole, kill the medical device tax that only bothers medical device corporations, zero out all of the Affordable Care Act's subsidies, and end Medicaid funding within a decade. That they're even calling this monstrosity a "moderate" bill shows you how thoroughly right-wingers have destroyed the word. And if it passes, it could get worse -- what's to stop this reactionary Congress from "reconciling" it with the hated House bill so that nearly all of the House bill becomes law? Look, if I thought of that, then they thought of it months ago. So give this zombie health care bill the headshot it deserves, by using the tools in the upper right-hand corner of this page (or the bottom of this page, if you're viewing it on a smartphone) to call your Senators and tell them to reject the Graham-Cassidy bill.

Meanwhile, President Trump has occasionally seemed to be of two minds about the DACA program that defers deportation for certain folks who were brought to America as children. Now, we don't need to pay too much attention to this apparent dichotomy -- oftentimes politicians seem to be "conflicted" about something about which they're not actually conflicted, and they do it to put people off their game -- but the problem of DACA's end in less than six months still remains, and helping these good folks out is our duty as Americans. I mean, seriously, we're going to blame them for something they literally had no say in doing? And send them back to countries they likely wouldn't even recognize? All so people can have swordfights over "who's more conservative"? So People for the American Way helps you tell your Reps and Senators to pass H.R. 3440/S. 1615, the DREAM Act, which would not only protect a lot of immigrants brought to America as children, but would actually help them contribute more to American society.

Finally, Brazil's government would like to sell off vast swaths of currently-protected Amazon rainforest for the benefit of, you guessed it, corrupt cronies, and Brazil's President plans to travel to the U.N. building in New York next week to drum up support (and possible buyers, I presume), so Avaaz helps you tell the government of Brazil to stop selling off Amazon rainforest. It's a pretty simple principle, really: hold on to public lands, use them for the public good, and care for them on the public's behalf, and they'll last forever, but you can only sell public lands off once, and the money you make from them won't last forever. Besides, governments typically sell off public lands for one of two reasons: to make up for budgetary shortfalls they could have avoided, or to funnel money to some crony or other. And contemplate a rainforest that's home to approximately one out of every ten species of animals on Earth and produces more than a fifth of the world's oxygen, and selling off chunks of it sure does seem small, doesn't it?

Around the table: corporate taxes, legislative hostage-taking, nursing home abuse, internet freedom, and military weapons for police.

"It's a Myth That Corporate Tax Cuts Mean More Jobs," says Sarah Anderson at The New York Times. So says most people who've given the matter a minute of thought, but Congressional Republicans want to lower the rate to 20 percent, and Ms. Anderson has effectively tested the effectiveness of that approach by conducting research on the 92 publicly-traded corporations already paying an effective tax rate of 20 percent or less. And surprise, surprise! As an aggregate, they're actually losing jobs -- though they're not exactly losing outlandish executive pay, or, we presume, stock buybacks. This sure seems like a head shot, to me, but I know this zombie lie will get back up.

Congressional Republicans plan to cut $1 billion from FEMA's budget, even though FEMA could be in Texas for years. And this cut is New Jersey Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen's idea, so add that to your Rodney Frelinghuysen hate book. In a peripherally-related note, Congress is also contemplating holding the Children's Health Insurance Program (or CHIP) reauthorization hostage to various stupid ideas, including a repeal of the medical device tax. Is it too much to ask that merely repeating these things out loud kills them, as daylight kills vampires? I insist that it is not too much to ask. But if I have to hold the damn wooden dagger myself, I'll do it.

HHS Inspector General reports that more than one out of every four nursing home abuse cases go completely unreported. And not all of the ones that do get reported actually get reported by nursing home staff, even though that's their job. But please, President Trump, make it harder for residents and their families to sue the nursing homes that abuse them! Forcing residents and families into arbitration they're probably going to lose really shows that great big heart of yours!

If the FCC guts our internet freedom, as we presume they're about to do, part III of Free Press's official comment to the FCC on the matter describes how such an anti-net neutrality action would be open to legal challenges. The gist of it is this: you can't do whatever the fuck you please just because you're FCC Chair -- you can, in fact, demonstrate enough pig-headedness that you run afoul of the law, in this case the Administrative Procedure Act. Also, too, maybe Mr. Pai shouldn't run his mouth on Twitter so much -- you know, like his boss.

Finally, in the wake of President Trump's resurrection of the program allowing local police departments to get discount military weapons, Mark Nevitt at Just Security wonders, quite reasonably, "Why Are We Giving U.S. Police Departments Bayonets?" He describes the folly of the 1033 program pretty well, and you may not be surprised by anything you read in it, but seriously, "(t)he bayonet is a bladed weapon designed as a weapon of last resort for close-quarter, hand-to-hand combat. In what circumstance would a police department need this?" Also worth highlighting: his suggestion that IKEA gives you more instruction on how to put together its furniture than the DOD does to police about how to use its weapons.

Action: health care, pollution, and food labeling.

You've likely heard by now that a group of "centrist" Congressfolk have come up with ideas for health care reforms to write into a bill. Headline: their ideas are mostly bad. Of course I'd like Congress to continue funding Affordable Care Act subsidies, but not at the price of applying the employer mandate only to corporations with 500 or more employees, versus corporations with 50 or more employees. The right constantly tries to see exactly how big they can make a corporation and still call it a "small business," but does 499 employees sound like a Mom and Pop store to you? They also want to get rid of the medical device tax and want to mess around with the pre-existing conditions ban, in the name of "innovation." You can't call a pile of dung meatloaf and then congratulate yourself for "innovating" on the definition of meatloaf. And why should I care that these ideas have ever received "bipartisan support"? I don't care about "bipartisan" ideas; I only care about good ideas, and these ain't those. Tools are in the upper right-hand corner of this page (or on the bottom, if you're on a cellphone) to help you call your Reps and Senators.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania state Senators have used a bill originally dealing with internet sales, HB 542, as a vehicle to gut clean air and clean water regulation in the Commonwealth! HB 542, in its relatively uncontroversial form, passed the House with a staggering majority back in May, but the Senate amended it thereafter to include a slew of pro-pollution amendments and then passed it by a far, far narrower margin. Hence the bill going back to the House now opens the door to privatizing the whole permitting process for gas and oil drilling, while also creating a legislature-appointed board that can veto clean air and clean water regulations and automatically approve drilling permits after 45 days. The bill also creates a fracking tax like the one the majority of Pennsylvanians have wanted for years, but again, why should we accept a slew of bad initiatives just to get one good one? That, folks, is called hostage-taking, and we Americans don't do hostage situations. Of course, having been so radically altered, HB 542 has to go back to the state House for approval, so both Penn Environment and Food and Water Watch help you tell your Pennsylvania House Reps to reject HB 542 when it comes back around.

Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell the FDA to finalize its food labeling rules, then Moms Rising still helps you do that. The FDA finalized food labeling rules for menus from restaurants, supermarkets, convenience stores, and movie theatres, and the rules require menus to give information about calories, sugar, fat, and salt. But delay, delay, delay is the Trump Administration way, so the FDA has mooted delaying the rules until 2018, presumably so it can collect more comments from corporate types about how oppressive it is for them to tell people how fatty their burgers are or how sugary their soft drinks are. I'm a compulsive food label reader myself, and I've seen the positive changes in my life once I decided that maybe a proper serving of pasta was better than just eating with my eyes. But I'm not the only one -- a lot of folks make better dietary choices, even when eating out, once they're supplied with good information. Of course, a venal fool like President Trump -- for whom sensation is everything and thinking about the future is for "losers" -- probably doesn't understand that very well, and reflexively anti-government Republicans will do little but enable him. But we don't have to enable him.

Around the table: in which we contemplate health care, the "war on terror," and "religious freedom."

Who are the biggest opponents of a Medicare-for-All, single-payer health care system in America? According to Michael Corcoran at TruthOut, single-payer's biggest opponents are health insurance corporations, big pharmaceutical corporations, medical device-manufacturing corporations, and for-profit hospitals, who comprise the "very small and powerful group of rich people (who) would be a little less rich if single-payer became a reality." And surprise! Some of these also comprise Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)'s biggest donors, which may be why she says the "comfort level" with single-payer "is not there yet," despite solid majority support for the idea in poll after poll.

Dean Baker reminds us that the counties-only-having-one-insurer-on-the-exchange problem just so happens to be much more of a problem in Republican-controlled states. By a four-to-one ratio, in fact -- and that would be a much, much bigger ratio if Pat McCrory had won in North Carolina last year, since that state comprises the vast majority of counties with only one health insurer on the exchange among states with Democratic Governors. Hence "when Trump and other Republicans tout the lack of competition in the exchanges, they are essentially talking about their own efforts to sabotage Obamacare."

Aaron E. Carroll and Austin Frakt at the New York Times remind us that you should be wary of "research" contending that folks on Medicaid have "worse health care outcomes" than folks on private insurance or no insurance. You can probably think of a few reasons folks on Medicaid have "worse outcomes," like that they're already poor and thus likely already in lousy health, or that the fact you can sign up for Medicaid retroactively means the system has a higher proportion of sick folk to begin with -- or that you can't run experiments with the same exact people on Medicaid, private insurance, and no insurance all at the same time. After all, you could easily imagine we have more sick folks on Medicaid because without it, a lot of them would be dead.

Eric Levitz at New York magazine suggests that President Trump hasn't come out with his big plan to beat ISIS because he's having trouble getting his military advisors to come up that's substantially different from Mr. Obama's. So to sum, he blew past that 30-day deadline (one he campaigned on) a few months ago, and has blown past at least two new deadlines since then, all because he needs a plan that he can say is really and truly his, apparently more than he needs one that actually works. Why we tolerate such drama is beyond me, but you can go ahead and add this to your list of reasons Mr. Trump has failed to keep our nation safe when terrorists attack again.

Finally, arts-and-crafts corporation Hobby Lobby pays a $3 million fine over its purchase of religious artifacts smuggled out of Iraq -- but doesn't admit guilt, at least not criminal guilt, because they're too big to fail, I guess. Thanks in large part to the Persian Gulf War and the Iraq War, Iraqi archaeological sites have lost hundreds of thousands of religious artifacts to looters, and the right-wingers who run Hobby Lobby had to have known that, regardless of their claims that they're (you guessed it!) new to this. At least they didn't try to beg off their fine by claiming a religious freedom to own these items, though I bet the next "Christian" corporation caught in this pickle will try that.

Around the table: why the FDA is a hostage to medical device corporations, and other lessons.

AP finds nearly 20 secret prisons in southern Yemen, where UAE forces torture alleged terrorists and American forces question them. The difference between the two isn't so vast, since international law looks upon the questioning of tortured detainees as complicity in that torture, and also since one Yemeni soldier has testified that at times American forces were mere "yards away" from that torture. Oh, if you're smelling that faint Trump odor, it sure looks like this has all been going on since the Obama years.

FDA strikes "deal" with medical device manufacturers which just so happens to require that the FDA exercise considerably less oversight over these same manufacturers. The FDA has to renegotiate this particular point every five years in order to continue getting funding from the medical device industry to finance a big chunk of its operations. Why not just fund it entirely with tax money, particularly since every time a medical device goes bad it hits the news big-time? At least then the FDA would be more accountable to us, instead of being industry's hostage.

Franklin Foer writes a long and generally incisive piece on how Democrats can get white working class voters back (without, you know, becoming racists again). Key points we learn from the famous Macomb County, MI focus groups: Trump votaries generally hate blacks a lot less than they used to but seem to have displaced that anger onto immigrants, and they don't care that Mr. Trump seems unhinged -- but they also don't know he's sold out to Wall Street banksters, and are very angry to learn that he has. Courageous Democrats might do something with the second item, but I think I just told you why that won't happen.

Ron Fein at TruthOut reminds us that President Trump has said bupkus about Turkish Presidential bodyguards attacking American protestors on the street last month. We can think of a few reasons, of course -- that Mr. Trump has encouraged his own supporters to act pretty much the same way, or that assholes tend to hang around with other assholes -- but you may not know that the Turkish President threatened to take Mr. Trump's name off a pair of Trump Towers in Istanbul last year. Oh, well, just another Trumpian conflict of interest that limits our freedoms.

Finally, the Carrier plant in Indiana where President Trump supposedly saved all those jobs in late 2016 will still outsource some 600 manufacturing jobs by the end of this year. Turns out most of the jobs Mr. Trump "saved" were not union-organized manufacturing jobs, but were technical and engineering positions that were never in danger of being lost in the first place! Also, the cash Carrier got as an incentive to keep the jobs? They're putting that into automation instead of actual job creation. Who "doesn't care about jobs" now, Trump votaries?

Around the table: the newest email scandal! And other tales.

Uh oh: while Governor of Indiana, Mike Pence used his AOL account. to conduct state business, and that account got hacked at least once (to run that old we're-stranded-send-money scam, no less!). And right-wingers are coming down just as hard on him as they did on Mrs. Clinton! I kid, of course -- we're more likely to see squealing that Indiana laws are different, or that previous Indiana governors did the same thing, though neither is a standard you'd use to select a President or Vice President.

The incomparable David Dayen informs us that Trump crony "regulatory advisor" Carl Icahn gets President Trump to draft an executive order that would force gasoline wholesalers, not oil refiners, assure that gasoline meets the 15% renewable energy standard. Why is this important? Because Mr. Icahn just so happens to own an oil refinery that can't blend ethanol, meaning his refinery has to buy renewable fuel credits to the tune of over $200 million last year. In the words of one industry analyst, "this is no deal for anyone but Carl Icahn." Greed and selfishness: they're what the Trump Administration is all about.

Surprise, surprise, the Keystone XL pipeline will not have to build with American steel like other pipelines will per a Trump executive order, because the Keystone XL pipeline isn't a "new" project, having been first proposed over eight years ago. If Mr. Obama put out that excuse, right-wingers would call him an egghead, but Mr. Trump did it, so they'll laud his cleverness in "sticking it to the man." Right-wingers never realize that they're "the man" their heroes stick it to.

Lily Hay Newman at Wired explains how "Medical Devices are the Next Security Nightmare." More and more implantable medical devices can be tweaked over wi-fi, which is a big improvement over needing another surgery, unless a hacker gets ahold of it. The only slightly less awful news is that the outdated computer software hospitals use (a few hospitals still use Windows XP, for which Microsoft no longer even makes security patches) is the more likely target.

Samsung is sending out Dish network techs to fix washing machines. The corporation says it notifies customers they'll get a Dish tech, and assures us that their Dish techs know what they're doing, but, ah, they don't always, plus they occasionally try to sell you a Dish network subscription. What on Earth would be the harm in, you know, hiring washing machine technicians in an economy with a U6 unemployment rate still above 9%? Oh, I forgot -- doing that doesn't get the CEO his 19th vacation home.

Finally, the good people of Kansas achieve a victory, of sorts, when their state legislature votes to rescind all of Sam Brownback's tax-cuts-for-the-rich since 2010. Sadly, Mr. Brownback, who's somehow still Governor, vetoed the bill and only the legislature's lower house overrode the veto. Still, I hope they try again. But I also hope that when Mr. Brownback leaves office his name is synonymous with "failure" -- and that the whole concept of "trickle-down economics" soils the name of anyone who supports it.

Action: GMO crop regulation, FBI whistleblower protection, and food menu labeling.

This U.S. Department of Agriculture may be as slavish a servant of big agricultural corporations as we have ever seen, but it still has lawfully-mandated duties, and luckily these include taking public comments on their proposed changes to the Animal Plant Health Inspection Service's new genetically-modified crop approval process. And their proposal -- surprise, surprise! -- stinks pretty awful, in that it seems to have been formulated by folks who don't understand that corporations don't create GMO crops to increase yields or promote healthier food, but to withstand ever-higher doses of their own proprietary pesticides. The APHIS proposal doesn't consider a lot of the ill effects of GMO crops, including increased weed resistance to ever-expanding use of pesticides, and GMO seed propensity to drift into fields that don't grow GMO crops. Food and Water Watch helps you tell the USDA to put health-related issues front and center when considering whether to approve GMO crops.

Meanwhile, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously advanced S. 2390, the FBI Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act, and the full Senate will soon consider it. S. 2390 would prevent the FBI from retaliating against whistleblowers, and would give whistleblowers the right to have their case reviewed by an Inspector General, the Attorney General, or a federal court. If you're aware of the Obama Administration's "war on whistleblowers" -- a war that has not only claimed good Americans blowing the whistle on medical device problems, CIA torture, and warrantless wiretapping, but also many good FBI officers -- then you probably see that FBI whistleblowers need more protection. And the Senate, at least, also seems to see this need -- S. 2390 has 11 sponsors, including lead sponsor Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa, and 10 other Senators evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. Hence the National Whistleblower Center helps you tell your Senator to help government workers who want to expose corruption and wrongdoing by supporting S. 2390.

Finally, the FDA and the Department of Health and Human Services (or HHS) have been working on restaurant menu labeling guidelines since 2010 -- which would, among other things, include information about calories, fat, sodium, and sugar -- but they still haven't finished the job, so Moms Rising helps you tell the FDA and HHS to enact the most vigorous restaurant menu food labeling guidelines possible. This isn't some outrageous Big Gummint mandate, as evidenced by the fact that a lot of big food corporations (including Starbucks and Panera) have voluntarily started such labeling, and that some states and municipalities have enacted their own mandates. I suppose the more resourceful troublemakers among us will complain that people aren't literate enough about these things generally so-what's-the-point, but naturally the more scientific studies tell us that folks actually do make better choices with better information. Giving folks stuff to read promotes literacy, who'da thunk it? And, of course, we don't abide folks trying to convince us to let the perfect murder the good.

Around the table: good folks giving politicians what-for, and other tales.

Trevor Timm, writing at The Guardian, explains "Why the Panama Papers Should Be a U.S. Election Issue." Long story short: even if no Americans are named therein, the Panama Papers highlight how "American" it's become to use offshore tax havens. Of course, corporate tax avoidance isn't exactly popular -- even the Treasury's rather meek corporate inversion rules have induced Pfizer to abandon its plan to merge with Allergan and become "foreign" -- but it is by and large legal, thanks to politicians who never listen to the people.

Hot on the heels of Rep. Grothman's rather frank admission that Voter ID helps Republicans out in Wisconsin, a former Republican staffer testifies that Republicans in Wisconsin's state legislature were "literally talking and plotting to deny someone, a fellow citizen, their constitutional right" to vote, particularly in "certain neighborhoods in Milwaukee and on our college campuses." The words "voter suppression" may never have passed their lips, because Scott Walker's New Republican Reich may be many things but they're not stupid. Still, we always knew it, and it's nice to have insider testimony.

Peter Maass, writing at The Intercept, reminds us that, whatever Donald Trump's ridiculous pronouncements about expanding libel laws, President Obama is the one who's used the Espionage Act of 1917 to "prosecute more leakers and whistleblowers than all previous administrations combined." Which should also remind you that the guy who blew the whistle on CIA torture (John Kiriakou) is in jail while the torturers themselves aren't (because we're "looking forward"!) and that the Obama Administration's hatred of whistleblowers is so total that even FDA workers suffered blowback after trying to call attention to malfunctioning medical devices.

Dean Baker finds complaints about the "lack of specifics" in Bernie Sanders's answers to the New York Daily News to be "silly." I mention this mainly because he reminds us that the same "liberal" media so anxious to castigate Sen. Sanders acts like Paul Ryan is TEH WONKIEST WONK EVAH!!!!, even though (or perhaps because!) he has "has repeatedly proposed eliminating most of the federal government." Then again, if Bernie Sanders knew the precise statute that would permit him to prosecute banksters for mortgage fraud, the "liberal" media would probably just call him a nerd.

Finally, Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott must regret stopping off at a Starbucks in Gainesville on Tuesday, after a local woman gave him what-for over (among other things) his refusal to expand Medicaid, saying "(y)ou should be ashamed to show your face around here." You'll recall that he said he supported expanding Medicaid while running for re-election in 2014, then flip-flopped once he was elected, because he won and you didn't. As for his "I created a million jobs" spiel: ah, no, the people of Florida created a million jobs, through their demand for goods and services -- and might have created more, except for Mr. Scott's perpetual hard-on for tax-cuts-for-the-rich getting in the way.

Around the table: cheating automakers, venal Republicans, and other bad actors.

Nearly 60 law professors urge Congress to pass legislation banning SLAPP lawsuits, or lawsuits designed to stifle free speech that might embarrass someone. Bills that would curb SLAPP lawsuits do attract bipartisan support, yet they just don't attract the fervor that bills curbing class-action lawsuits do. I wonder why. And please understand that by "I wonder why" I mean "because curbing class-action lawsuits pleases Congressfolks' corporate paymasters, whereas curbing SLAPP lawsuits would only help people."

EPA orders Volkswagen to recall almost half a million cars after Volkswagen installed software that induced certain of its models to reduce emissions only during emissions tests, meaning these cars have been polluting the atmosphere for years. Right-wingers who use this incident to claim that GUBMINT RULEZ DOEZN'T WORKZ!!!!! should note that a) all the cars involved are diesel cars, which hardly comprise a majority of cars on the road, or even Volkswagens on the road and b) Volkswagen got caught. In any case, someone had better go to jail over this.

Sens. Heller (R-NV) and Heinrich (D-NM) introduce bill repealing the "Cadillac" tax in the Affordable Care Act. Repealing the Medical Device Tax and the various Medicare taxes affecting only high-income earners would be dumb ideas, but repealing the "Cadillac tax," which affects high-end health insurance plans starting in 2018, would not be, because the folks with better health care plans aren't necessarily the most well-off individuals. Of course, you wouldn't have to jump through hoops like this if we just had a single-payer health care plan like Canada's.

Ho hum, Irving, Texas police also violated Ahmed Mohamed's rights by keeping him from contacting his parents while being fingerprinted and questioned. Let me say that racism and Islamophobia aren't the only factors compelling school officials and local police to act like utter circus clowns throughout this incident -- I think "zero tolerance" and "tough-on-crime" mindsets are as much to blame. But if Ahmed Mohamed lost all trust in adults for the next few years, I wouldn't blame him.

Liz Stinson at Wired describes a "Smog-Free Tower" in Rotterdam that stands close to 23 feet tall and purifies one million cubic feet of air per hour. That may be less impressive than it sounds -- Ms. Stinson tells us that would purify the equivalent of a Madison Square Garden every 10 hours, but most cities are much larger than that, and polluters keep on polluting, as you know. Still, if it can be scaled up, it might be quite the revolutionary device.

Finally, in case you missed Ice-T's livetweeting of last week's Republican Presidential debate, Factcheck runs down the lowlights. Key moments: Mr. Trump apparently making up a figure to describe the economic burden undocumented immigrants supposedly cause, Ms. Fiorina conflating several disparate bits of "testimony" in the Planned Parenthood videos into an image that doesn't actually exist therein, and Sen. Rubio assuring us that doing something about climate change would be "absolutely" useless as if doing the right thing and polluting less is ever useless. As a bonus, we get more vaccine-related stupidity ("anecdotes ARE TOO science!" from Mr. Trump, and "even if the science tells me I'm wrong, I still have the right to do my children harm, because freedom!" from Mr. Paul, who is still not his father.)

Action: justice for Vietnamese prisoners of conscience, and due diligence for drug and medical device testing.

Tomorrow, Vietnam plans to release a lot of prisoners -- but Amnesty International helps you tell the Vietnamese government to release prisoners of conscience as well. After all, you'd hate to see 17,000 prisoners hit the streets and think it was all for show, wouldn't you? I mean, we all know that every country puts a lot of pretty undangerous people in jail, for a variety of reasons good and bad, and if we didn't see, say, Catholic priest Nguyen Van Ly among them -- he being the principle author of the Bloc 8406 manifesto, calling for (among other things) a multiparty state in Vietnam -- we might start to think it was all for show. I know, the families of the soon-to-be-released prisoners will disagree, but we would still have every right to think the Vietnamese government was using them as pawns. Naturally, the Amnesty alert above cites two other bloggers it would like to see released, since blogging is, in some parts of the world, an activity the state fears greatly. What could such states be afraid of?

Meanwhile, H.R. 6, the so-called 21st Century Cures Act, passed out of the House last month, and presumably the Senate will take it up soon, since the bill reauthorizes National Institutes of Health funding through 2018. And, as you might expect, the bill holds this funding hostage to bad ideas, like forcing the FDA to evaluate drugs and medical devices for "serious conditions" much more quickly. When folks hear that a drug or medical device could cure the hated disease of a loved one, guess which part of that formulation they're least likely to hear? No one wants sick people to die, but suggesting that the FDA dithers merely by ensuring the safety of drugs and devices is quite manipulative, and there's another name for getting new drugs and devices to market science-be-damned: corporate welfare, since big pharma corporations will, after all, make lots of money from these drugs and devices. So Consumers Union helps you tell your Senators to defend science and reject corporate welfare by passing a much better bill than H.R. 6.

Around the table: from the end of the "real Republican primary" to the end of Comcast's dreams of acquiring Time-Warner.

Doyle McManus describes the Republican "billionaires' primary," where a series of right-wing billionaires each seem to have a "pet candidate" they can "make or break." Philadelphia Eagles fans will remember (though not fondly) former owner Norman Braman, who's now a Marco Rubio man. The Nation's John Nichols, writing on the same topic, reminds us that the plutocrats in this "primary" don't speak for very many Republican voters: almost half of rank-and-file Republicans think the rich don't pay enough in taxes, and a similar number think we should have fewer foreign policy adventures. Also, though Mr. Nichols doesn't note it, two-thirds of Republicans think the Supreme Court botched the Citizens United v. FEC decision that birthed this "billionaires' primary" to begin with.

Ho hum, the 15 biggest medical device corporations pushing Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act's 2.3% excise tax just so happen to be pushing a lot of their profits "offshore" to avoid taxation. I wonder if anyone besides a corporatist would run through a wall for medical device tax repeal. I also wonder if anyone who supports such repeal can explain how the tax is supposed to work in the first place -- the ACA would, after all, deliver more work to medical device corporations through its exchanges than they'd otherwise get, and a 2.3% excise tax in return hardly seems like extortion.

Copyright law has become ever murkier in recent years, and now tractor manufacturer John Deere asserts that, though you actually paid cash money for that tractor, you don't really "own" it, because the tractor has a computer chip with some code on it. Well, so much for my lifelong dream of popping wheelies with a tractor! Seriously, they're trying to muscle in on the good thing computer-makers have with their digital books and mp3s you can't resell, but no one really thinks of either one of those things as, well, things.

Max Ehrenfreund writes about how "Kansas Lawmakers Want the Poor to Pay for Tax Cuts for the Rich." Good Kansan working families pay nearly one out of every nine dollars they make just in state and local taxes -- that's before we get to federal taxes -- and they're about to pay a bit more than that. Yet they re-elected Gov. Brownback, not because he's so clever at using social-issue misdirection, I maintain, but because Democrats offered little better in Paul Davis, who never ran on repealing the Brownback tax cuts, but on maybe slowing some of them down. Typical Democrat weakness.

In a peripherally related note, Wichita State statistician sues top Kansas election officials in order to obtain electronic voting machines' paper tapes. Why? Because she's noticed the same thing other folks have noticed: that in many precincts across America, "the percentage of Republican votes increase the larger the size of the precinct." Furthermore, the pattern seems to favor Republican establishment candidates over Tea Party challengers. Remember when Diebold's CEO declared in 2004 that his corporation was dedicated to delivering Ohio for Mr. Bush? There's motive, at least.

Finally, some good news: Comcast has abandoned its effort to assimilate merge with Time-Warner cable, after much public outcry (including yours, I bet!) over how a merger would further entrench Comcast as a monopoly. A Comcast PR statement lamented that "we would have liked to bring our great products to new cities," which must have made Comcast subscribers all over America spit out their coffee. But we helped do a good thing here, even if Comcast is having a sad about it.

Around the table: from the "automatic IRA" to the automatic stupidity of Bill Donohue.

Illinois becomes the first state to offer what's essentially an automatic IRA program for the state's private sector workers; the program deducts three percent of a worker's paycheck for the account. Automatic participation, of course, does ensure more participation, and probably more enthusiastic participation as well; with Vermont's Governor having scuttled that state's single-payer plans, this may have to do for a state pioneering a program that could one day go national.

Ho hum, House Republicans have decided to force the Government Accounting Office (or GAO) to use "dynamic scoring" in its analyses of House bills. Remember that when Republicans tell you that tax cuts actually boost government revenue (which data "dynamic scoring" is supposed to capture), you need only point to the ongoing slow disaster that is Kansas's budget crisis to prove them wrong. You might point to a few dozen other examples as well -- or to the massive increase in federal revenues following the return of the 39.6 percent tax bracket in 2013.

The Washington Post finds itself skeptical that the medical device tax has really eliminated tens of thousands of jobs. Among the findings: the larger the study, the less likely it'll find that the tax has actually "killed any jobs." And while a few Congressfolk have testified that numerous businesses tell them they're foregoing hiring because of the tax, none of these Congressfolk seem skeptical that a CEO might tell them that for, you know, some other reason, like they don't want to pay the tax. And, you know, taxes aren't the only reason anyone ever does anything.

Sendhil Mullainathan writes an extremely thoughtful rundown of recent social service research indicating that we're often more guilty of racism than we think. You'll undoubtedly be familiar with some of it -- résumés with "black-sounding" names getting less attention than identical ones with "white-sounding" names, blacks getting worse offers at used car lots than whites, blacks getting shown fewer apartments than whites, et cetera. You may also find the author's description of the difference between "fast" and "slow" thinking illuminating.

Finally, Catholic League President Bill Donohue satisfies his craving for attention for at least a few minutes by saying the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists "provoked" the terrorist attack that left a dozen folks (including two police officers) dead. BFD that Mr. Donohue condemned the violence, like that's the bar to which we should aspire -- people who massacre others over perceived insults are much worse than diaper-loaded brats, yet a virulent strain of immaturity still sits at the center of these acts, and I'm pretty sure that's why Mr. Donohue seems to have a place in his heart for them. Have we vowed never again to speak of Mr. Donohue yet? If not, let's do that now.

Around the table: good news, plus news the "liberal" media won't tell you.

You need good news, so you get good news: Yes! magazine details some more victories procured by the people this recent Election Day. Among other things, towns in three states banned fracking, communities in five states voted overwhelmingly against Citizens United and its notion of corporate "personhood," a California city council beat back oil-backed challengers, and a Florida city imposed campaign contribution limits. You may call these trifles, but every victory sets an example. And yes, we have all been here before -- not just four years ago, but ten years ago.

FAIR doesn't think young folks are becoming Republican so fast like the "liberal" media's been saying for a few weeks now. Main problem with the oft-referenced Harvard Institute of Politics study? The young folks who said they were "definitely" voting broke for Republicans, but these "definite" voters comprised only a little over 1 in 4 of all the young folks Harvard surveyed; most young folks still vote left, for all the reasons you'd expect. Still, who cares about facts when you can write a titillating headline?

Kelly Phillips Erb at Forbes warns about an IRS-related identity-theft scam. How it works: someone calls you, claiming that you can't file your tax returns electronically anymore because the IRS thinks someone's stolen your identity -- and then that someone repeatedly calls you for personal information and payment, even threatening you with a summons if you don't comply. Thing is, the IRS doesn't ask for payment over the phone, will contact you over snail mail if they think there's a problem, and won't compel your participation in identity theft investigations. Yes, I know our casino economy discourages honest work, but that fact doesn't let dishonest people off the hook.

Being a Medicare-for-all kind of guy, I'm not that emotionally invested in "obstructing Republicans' efforts to repeal Obamacare," but Joan McCarter reminds me of something very important about the "medical device tax": that it taxes very few medical devices, and those devices are all very rare and specialized like artificial joints, not your run-of-the-mill "medical device" like a pair of glasses. That's a very important point, especially since I'm sure the "liberal" media will "forget" to report it in their zeal to prove how "bipartisan" medical device tax repeal is.

Finally, a charter school chain claims its administrators' salaries comprise a "trade secret," but the North Carolina State Board of Education doens't agree. Yet another danger of privatizing our public schools! It's obvious to you and me that if you take public money, you don't get to keep how you spend public money a big secret, but I guess it's nice to see that some arm of the most reactionary government in the country agrees. Now let's see action.

Around the table: the turmoil in Iraq is not spiking gas prices! And other truths.

Been hearing that the turmoil in Iraq will send your gas prices sky-high? It's bullshit -- first off, "five cents a gallon more" is not something most folks are going to notice, and second off, Iraqi oil provides four percent of our oil. Those "liberals" at CBS Evening News take the cake for a) putting together a graph that would make Fox News ashamed of itself and b) deploying a scare number. ZOMG IRAK COSTZ TEH PEEPULZ $163 MILLYUNS EVERY WEEK!!!! My God, that's a little more than 50 cents per person. No chewing gum or classic pinball games for you this week, Joe American! Seriously, it's a shame the "liberal" media never points to oil speculation as the cause of high gas prices, though they'd be on safer ground there.

The Tax Justice Blog describes the sordid recent tax-avoidance history of the medical device corporation Medtronic. Medtronic's famous for trying to repeal the ACA's medical device tax, about which they should stop whining already, but although the Hastert/Frist Congress made it considerably harder for corporations to reincorporate as "foreign" corporations (and thus pay no American income tax), they still left open a loophole for corporations that buy foreign corporation and then reincorporate in that other corporation's home nation. Hence Medtronic plans to buy Covidien and become "Irish," though Covidien is itself an "Irish" corporation actually doing all its work in Massachusetts! Sláinte!

The city of Miami sues J.P. Morgan Chase for engaging in "a continuous pattern and practice of mortgage discrimination in Miami since at least 2004 by imposing different terms or conditions on a discriminatory and legally prohibited basis." The specific complaint: that J.P. Morgan Chase made high-cost loans to minorities, then wouldn't refinance them like they would for white folk. Knowing what a great example of humanity J.P. Morgan was in the Gilded Age, nobody could have imagined his namesake corporation would turn out so badly!

The Bureau of Labor Statistics informs us that the greatest job growth in America has occurred in -- are you ready? -- areas of the country where taxes are high or have increased. That's not a reason to hike all kinds of taxes everywhere -- that 30% national sales tax the FAIR tax people keep calling a 23% tax? Still a bad idea -- but it is something to fling in the face of your Tea Party uncle when he goes on about how TAXEZ KILLZ TEH JOBZ!!!!!!

Ho hum, well over half of Americans polled by Consumer Reports think the Comcast-Time Warner merger is a bad idea. It gets worse for corporatists: a mere 11% think it's a good idea, and many of the folks who don't come down on one side or the other still think the merger will jack up prices and reduce programming choices. You know what we need right now? A Comcast lobbyist who'll come out and say the majority of his potential customers are stupid.

Finally, Robert Reich opines that "real business leaders" are as concerned about the gap between rich and poor as the rest of us are. Even without a list including Lloyd Goddamn Blankfein, I'd tend to agree -- since I generally don't think the folks the "liberal" media call "business leaders" are real business leaders. (Since I still have a few lines, let me say I don't think we should sling around the phrase "income inequality" -- it implies we should all make the same amount of money, which we shouldn't. I prefer "economic opportunity.")

Action: minimum wage protections, veterans' benefits, and sunshine in litigation.

The Department of Labor finally extended federal minimum wage protections to home health care workers -- the people who help our elderly and disabled citizens eat, drink, and bathe, but who have trouble making ends meet and staying off public assistance because they're just not paid enough. And yet word on the street is that the Department of Labor might delay that action for another 18 months past the current January 1, 2015 deadline. Why? Surprisingly, the objections come from state Medicaid directors, who may wind up paying for the change, but who don't have anything new to say about it -- "the potential impact on the continuity and quality of care for certain Medicaid enrollees, as well as state capacity to sustain the current scope and reach" blah blah blah. If I don't tolerate hostage situations from corporations, why would I tolerate it from our government? So the AFSCME helps you tell the Department of Labor to implement federal minimum wage protections for home health care workers on schedule, because justice has eluded them for 40 years already, and another year and a half will no doubt land more than a few of them in the poorhouse.

Meanwhile, Sen. Sanders (I-VT) has introduced S. 2422, the Restoring Veterans' Trust Act of 2014, which would do some of the same things his last veterans' benefits bill did. You remember, the one the Republicans filibustered because they couldn't get an anti-Iran amendment attached, or because it cost too much, or something? You don't remember? Well, as we discussed the other day, the "liberal" media didn't do a very thorough job covering it back in February. But S. 2422 would let the VA hire more doctors and nurses, lease 27 new health care facilities, and give scholarships and student debt forgiveness as an incentive to health care professionals who might want to work for the VA. One thing I haven't said enough about this whole thing: Republicans whining about the cost of taking care of veterans now may want to revisit the wisdom of invading Afganistan and Iraq and occupying those nations for years on end. They may also want to revisit the wisdom of trying to win wars (and occupations!) with too-small armies who get absolutely strung out from repeated tours of duty. Anyway, the Campaign for America's Future helps you tell Congress to support better health care for veterans.

Finally, Sens. Blumenthal (D-CT) and Graham (R-SC) have introduced S. 2364, the companion bill to H.R. 4361, the Sunshine in Litigation Act. Remember those bad ignition switches in GM cars that may have killed a dozen folks in the last decade? Well, we might never have found out about those, because GM put confidentiality agreements in all their settlements over the switches. And when any GM auto owner could have an ignition switch that winds up snuffing them out, and when "any GM owner" might include you or someone you love, then I think we would be compelled to agree that such knowledge is in the public interest. And it's not just ignition switches subject to these settlement agreements -- how about that hip implant, or side effect-laden drug, or defective toy? All covered by confidentiality agreements, and all things we need to know about. It's nice to see Lindsey Graham agrees -- no doubt the all-lawsuits-are-bad lobby is pressuring him to drop his co-sponsorship as we speak, but he's doing a good thing here, and we ought to encourage that. So Public Citizen helps you tell your Senators to support the Sunshine in Litigation Act.

Around the table: from payday lender desperation to renewable energy hope.

Believe it or not, payday loan supporters do have their own talking points, and the Consumerist demolishes them here. Even in places where banks fear to tread, you're better off going to a credit union or a state loan program than getting a payday loan with its high interest and onerous fees. Also, payday loans don't "create jobs," they create debt. And would you believe some folks justify payday loans by saying they're preferable to rioting, even though people generally don't riot in the states that ban payday loans? I mean, you can justify any dumb idea by comparing it to imaginary violence.

Citizens for Tax Justice shares "five key tax facts about the health care law." It's admirably short, but I'll try to improve on that: the law provides lots of subsidies, both to individuals and small businesses; almost all of the bill's tax increases affect income over $200,000; only 1 in 50 Americans will have to pay the mandate penalty; and the corporations whining the most about the medical device excise tax may not be paying enough taxes to begin with. None of that will convince your crazy right-wing uncle, but this message ain't for him; it's for the sane people who might accidentally pay attention to him.

Newt Gingrich thinks the solution to "an election process that radically favors billionaires and is discriminating against the middle class" is to let "candidates...receive the same amount of money as super PACs." If he somehow untangled that Moebius strip of an argument, the Washington Post didn't report it, but the Post did write an overly flattering headline -- "Newt Gingrich says wealthy donors like Sheldon Adelson have too much influence" -- when a more accurate one would have been "Newt Gingrich proposes solution to billionaire election influence that would make problem much worse."

PPP poll finds Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett losing his 2014 re-election bid to a generic Democrat by a whopping 56-34 margin. But I think the poll's sample of Democrats is a bit huge (49%? Come on, even I'm a registered independent!). Also, Mr. Corbett won't run against a generic Democrat, but a real one, and none of the ones running are all that impressive -- the likely nominee, Tom Wolf, especially strikes me as another let's-all-get-along-after-all-I'm-a-businessman type, and I'm tired of those.

Finally, Occupy.com reports on the Danish island of Samsø, which creates 100% of its electricity from solar and wind power and 70% of its heat from renewable resources. And it all started with a state-sponsored competition! We just better hope the Koch brothers don't get to pick our next President, or else we might "find" "terrorists" there, and "have" to invade.

Around the table: limning the boundaries of greed!

Behold! ALEC's legislative agenda for the coming year, courtesy the Center for Media and Democracy. What will they be up to? Keeping Frankenfood from being labeled, keeping good citizens from suing corporations when corporations hurt them, privatizing our schools, promoting fossil-fuel pollution, ripping apart Medicaid -- and, ah, ending licensing and certification of doctors and other medical professionals. Yes, you read that right, and they call that model bill the "Patient Access to Expansion Act." Well, it sure will expand their access to bad doctors! We'll have our work cut out for us next year.

You've heard of "Small Business Saturday"? And you're aware it's a project of American Express? Citizens for Tax Justice points out the obvious: that American Express -- as a corporation taking advantage of, and seeking to expand, offshore tax havens -- is no friend of the small businesses that can't take advantage of offshore tax havens. Maybe American Express feels guilty. You all know how to avoid feeling guilty, right? Don't set out to do wrong.

Les Leopold at the Huffington Post makes an ambitious point, that "the rise in incarceration corresponds with the rise of financialization and the dramatic increase in Wall Street incomes." The flesh is willing, but correlation isn't causation, and I think both the leaded gasoline thesis for violent crime and the "hot-spot" thesis for dropping crime rates (to name two controversial theories) have more explanatory power.

Peter Dreier presents an avalanche of useful information in taking NPR's Robert Siegel to task for asking a guest whether the average bank teller salary of $11/hour ain't so bad in some parts of the country. Of course, it's not -- but in those parts of the country, bank tellers ain't making $11/hour either to begin with. Unless they're commuting from Arkansas to New York City!

Finally, Australian researchers have developed a "bio-pen," which would allow surgeons to "draw" cartilage directly on the body. Specifically, the pen would insert cells directly into a surgical area, and those cells would then grow into nerve/muscle/bone calls as needed. The article doesn't specify, but this method looks like it could, in time, replace hip implants. Sounds great -- and I'd still subject it to a rigorous medical device review process if it came to the U.S.

Around the table: starring the overpaid and their staunchest defenders.

Another day, another cable news punditoid sticking up for J.P. Morgan Chase as, somehow, a "victim" of Big Bad Gummint. And surprise! Said cable news punditoid, CNN's Erin Barnett, used to be a financial analyst for Goldman Sachs and a Vice President at Citigroup -- not that such experience automatically corrupts how you think, but our cable news elites sure do seem to like that kind of experience for some reason.

Citizens for Tax Justice finds Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker giving a projected $100 million budget surplus over two years to help fund local school districts -- but the aid will be permanent, even if the surplus won't be, and the aid mandates property tax cuts that most folks won't even feel. That's because the tax cuts go across the board -- big corporations get them and folks with vacation homes will get them just as much as folks who are lucky enough to own one home. That Scott Walker sure is a clever servant of corporate power.

German Bishop spends $40 million on renovating his personal residence, then gets suspended by the Vatican. Clearly Mr. Tebartz-van Elst didn't get any of the many memos Pope Francis has been leaving for Christianity lately. What's worse: German taxpayers paid for all of that. No, really -- Germans have been paying taxes to support their churches since the Middle Ages. And that is one more reason we separate church and state in America!

David Sirota instructs us further about the myth that higher state income taxes cause millionaires to flee. He cites the Princeton study in New Jersey from the middle of the last decade, of course, but also similar findings from California. And, of course, he debunks the "finding" that millionaires "fled" New York state from 2007 to 2009 -- just like in Oregon and Maryland, the bad economy didn't cause millionaires to "flee," but merely caused them to become not-millionaires. Jesus Mary and Joseph I'd like to live in a world where we're not constantly playing whack-a-mole with stupid arguments.

CBS News reports on surgeons who own their own medical device corporations -- and who may well be performing more surgeries, using these devices, than they should. Some say such corporations should be abolished; I'm more inclined toward regulating them, as Mr. Steinmann would, but of course my ideal regulatory scheme wouldn't be voluntary.

Around the table: more foolish behavior from our government, plus a ray of hope for HIV treatment.

The New York Times reports that the NSA has been drawing social connections between and among Americans using the vast amount of metadata it collects. But they say they've only been using it when there's a "foreign intelligence justification," pinky swear, though of course they decided to expand this effort without any oversight in late 2010. We have two choices: trust our government, or be Americans.

Several Republican members of Congress suddenly aren't sure if furloughed government employees will get back pay resulting from the shutdown. Here's a clue: if you caused government workers to work without pay, you pay them for the work they did -- and if you caused government workers not to work because you couldn't fund the government, you pay them for the work they could have done. Really, they're writing new campaign ads for the other side every day. (Not that we'll ever see them -- after all, Democrats would have to run them, and they won't, because civility.)

Speaking of the shutdown, dig this wack quotation from Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN): "We're not going to be disrespected. We have to get something out of this. And I don't know what that even is." But why should anyone care what Republicans "get" out of this whole mess? And why should we care whether any of them feel "disrespected"? The only respect they should worry about is the respect they earn from their constituents. Really, it ain't that damn deep.

Because so many Congressfolk (including both my Senators!) have such a hard-on for abolishing the medical device tax in the Affordable Care Act, Citizens for Tax Justice explains why the tax isn't such a bad idea. Long story short: most of the medical device industry's complaints are irrelevant -- really, what's going to drive down demand for medical devices, besides large numbers of people suddenly preferring pain and misery? -- and, like, yo, it's a measly 2.3% tax, which won't even get levied on American medical devices exported overseas. They already got the weak medical device law they wanted from Congress last year; how much is enough for them?

Finally, University of Florida and University of California-San Francisco researchers have found that blood from folks with HIV can show an immune response if confronted with a protein from FIV, or feline immunodeficiency virus. Worst case scenario: we'll learn more about how to vaccinate against HIV by seeing what it has in common with FIV, or come up with a better vaccine for FIV. Cats suffer just as much as we do, after all, though they do their damndest never to let on.

Action: food stamps, medical device warranties, and clean air and water.

Rep. Cantor (E-VA) has introduced the Nutrition Reform and Work Opportunity Act. Sounds like a good thing, doesn't it, all full of "reform" and "opportunity" and perhaps even "nutrition" and work"? Well, it's not: Mr. Cantor says the bill (currently not available for review on the Thomas or Govtrack websites) would find food stamp cuts, er, efficiencies by eliminating a) waivers for work requirements and b) "loopholes" in income and asset tests. Still sound good, all corruption-fighty and stuff? Problem is that most states don't operate the programs with which food stamp citizens would fulfill the "work requirements" -- and that, not "corruption," is why our government waives the requirements in the first place. And, as I've said before, "asset tests" tend to have a rosy view of how quickly one can turn "assets" into actual, usable cash. Make no mistake, this bill is cruel to the good and decent Americans who need it most -- this, after the House actually increased big corporate farm subsidies in its food-stamp-free version of the farm bill. So NETWORK, the national Catholic social justice lobby, helps you tell your Congressfolk to reject these cruel food stamp cuts.

Meanwhile, you may recall that Congress tackled the medical device approval process in 2012 -- and you may also recall that, despite an unusually high number of news stories in the "liberal" media about folks whose medical devices failed on them and caused them further pain and hardship, Congress didn't dare require that medical devices actually be tested before they go to market. (And yes, 9 out of 10 Americans surveyed wanted pre-market testing, too. It's amazing how little Congress listens to its owners, the American people.) But Consumers Union has proposed another way forward: making medical device corporations warranty their products, so that if a hip or knee replacement fails (and they do fail!), at least it won't cost you tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to replace it. Consumers Union directs its email tool (which you may find here) at the CEOs of the six largest medical implant manufacturers; I guess they're not directing it at Congress because they have no hope Congress will do its job, and I can sympathize with that view, even if I can't endorse it. Still, CEOs don't like bad publicity. And, as Consumers Union points out, even toasters have warranties.

Finally, S. 1392, the Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act of 2013, might actually cut pollution, increase energy efficiency, and reduce the effects of climate change -- but the Senate is, as we speak, mulling amendments that could give dirty energy corporations all sorts of welfare handouts and thus mitigate the bill's good works, so the Environmental Defense Fund helps you tell your Senators to reject any amendments to S. 1392 that would help out corporate CEOs at the expense of the air we all breathe and the water we all drink. It's not hard to imagine what sort of pro-pollution amendments we might see, because we've seen a lot of them already. Remember the Murkowski bill from 2010 that would have prevented the EPA from regulating carbon emissions? Or the Rand Paul bill from 2011 that would have prevented the EPA from regulating cross-state air pollution? Or the Inhofe bill from 2012 that would have struck the EPA's then-new mercury and air toxics rules? These are the kinds of things to which our right-wingers could hold an energy efficiency bill for American buildings hostage. But we're not hostages. We're Americans.