Thieves in the Temple.

Around the table: the further adventures of our intrepid President.

Remember when our Secretary of State "certified" that the Saudi/UAE coalition was doing its best to protect civilian human rights in its war on Yemen? Well, he may have done that after the State Department's legislative affairs team told him that ending the war in Yemen would cost corporations too much money in arms sales -- and a former lobbyist for a defense contractor just so happens to head up that team. Nice to know that the matter of right and wrong enters into our government's deliberations so frequently! Remember this when your Tea Party uncle says our President is conducting a "different" kind of foreign policy, or that you should put businesspeople in government because they're the best people and they know everything.

Our Administration lifts a penalty for a coal corporation that has repeatedly violated mine safety laws -- and may have broken the law in doing so. And the fellow who made this decision -- our Administration's Mine Safety and Health Administration chief -- is a former coal executive whose corporation repeatedly violated the safety of its workers because of course he is. Again, let your Tea Party uncle explain how businesspeople "know everything," or, better yet, how making coal mines less safe "helps out coal miners." (And yes, I noticed the Russian connection to Pocahontas Coal -- but which would be worse: the fact of a Russian connection, or more coal miners getting sick and dying because our Administration doesn't think it has to play by the rule of law?)

A U.S. District Judge blocks a North Carolina law aiming to slash farmworkers' rights. Confront the details of the bill the court struck down and you'll likely think of it as legislators throwing fecal matter against a wall to see what sticks. But you know, it sure would be better for all of us if farmworkers weren't exempt from the protections of the National Labor Relations Act, and recent pro-worker legislation at the federal level, while pretty commendable, hasn't gone as far as that.

North Carolina passes law mandating voting places stay open from 7am to 7pm on weekdays -- but this has the unintended consequence (or do I mean "unintended consequence"?) of forcing almost half of that state's counties to close early voting locations. If you're thinking more hours open means more access to the polls, consider how far some rural folks have to go to vote and how little it matters that polls might be open a little earlier or a little later, and then accept the wisdom of having more voting locations.

Ho hum, Facebook now relies on two government-created propaganda outlets to stem the spread of "fake news." Or do I mean "stem"? Too many folks are using the spectre of "fake news" to censor good liberal news outlets, and (as I've said to more than one troll!) crying "fake news" at everything is a way of saying you can't win arguments on the merits. I'll admit I've barely noticed Facebook's doings on my news feed, but that's because I don't use them as a news feed -- I use email, still the greatest social network ever created, as a news feed.

Finally, we now know of four women who are accusing Brett Kavanaugh of various kinds of sexual assault, and rather than attend Mr. Kavanaugh's unlikely denials or our President's expected hysteria, let us instead attend Sen. Lindsey Graham's declaration that he doesn't want to "ruin this guy's life based on an accusation." If Mr. Kavanaugh didn't get on our Supreme Court, would that really "ruin" his life? He'll still serve on the D.C. Circuit Court, he'll still be the beneficiary of (I suspect wholly unexamined) white privilege, he'll be able to get wingnut welfare forever if he chooses -- yeah, our lives should be so "ruined." And, as I've suggested, a lot of people not so afflicted by a sense of entitlement must have the skill and ability to fill this position. Maybe even our President could find one.

Around the table: mine safety, climate change, privatization, gay marriage, net neutrality, and turning light into matter.

A May 12 mining accident at a notoriously unsafe West Virginia mine "highlights the need for Congressional action," says the Center for Effective Government. They're right, of course, but n.b. that the Robert C. Byrd Mine Safety Protection Act couldn't even get through the House when the Democrats controlled it, which speaks to the difficulty (though not impossibility!) of our task. Getting proper funding the for the Mine Safety and Health Administration (a casualty of sequestration, of course!) should, in theory, be considerably easier -- I mean, what Congressperson would really want to be known as pro-dead miner?

This should be interesting: Farmers Insurance Co. has filed nine class-action lawsuits against over 200 local governments in Chicago and its environs, alleging they know about climate change but are doing nothing about it, thus causing the kind of catastrophes Farmers Insurance has to spend money covering. I'm not sure any of them are going to win -- I presume you can demonstrate that climate change is causing certain events to happen more frequently, but not necessarily that it caused all the specific claims you're trying to redress. Still, the fossil fuel corporations could one day find themselves surrounded on climate change by every other sector of the corporate economy, and that wouldn't be a bad thing.

Dave Johnson promises "Five Government Outsourcing Horror Stories," but actually delivers many more, and not just because number 5 is "Any Government 'Outsourcing' Anything." Read through the Chicago Parking Meters story, the Indiana Toll Road story, the private prisons story, and the "Cost Overruns" story, but attend these four sentences most closely: "But just how do they save money? There are two ways a company can save money over what government spends. The first is to reduce what it pays employees and suppliers. The second is to cut back on the amount or quality of the service the company is taking over."

Far-right radio host/contender for Georgia's 10th Congressional District says having same-sex parents is rather like "los(ing) a mom or dad in a car accident." Plus gay people have the right to marry, just not each other har har har. I guess he's trying to out-Paul Broun Paul Broun, who currently "serves" the 10th District and who just lost the Senate runoff. Mr. Hice, unfortunately, just made the House election runoff, and the winner there will almost certainly win the general election, meaning we could be hearing from Mr. Hice for many, many years. But not here, where we'll never speak of him again.

Yes! Magazine gives us "four signs net neutrality isn't dead yet." You likely already know them -- that the FCC changed its proposal somewhat after popular pressure, that pressuring elected representatives helped that, that public utility reclassification isn't dead and buried, and that some big corporations are now more visibly on our side -- but it's good to be reminded. Why, AT&T has just promised three years of net neutrality if we approve their deal to buy DirecTV, which shouldn't induce us to take the deal, but should alert us that corporations know net neutrality is popular and thus induce us to fight harder for net neutrality.

Finally, scientists at Imperial College London have worked out how to turn light into matter. Note that nobody's actually done that yet, but the physicists think it can be done with "existing technology." Hopefully we won't have to deal with junk patents on light in the meantime.