Thieves in the Temple.

Around the table: well, at least we knew Bill Russell.

NBA legend/civil rights warrior Bill Russell died on Sunday at the age of 88, but he leaves behind a life of good works. Mr. Russell helped the Celtics win eight straight NBA titles – it would have been 11, but for that one year Wilt Chamberlain’s 76ers went wild – and he did this at a time when Jim Crow still throttled Black folks in half of the cities in which he played, and his own city treated him like dirt, his money and fame apparently not good enough to get him into more exclusive communities, nor enough to keep feces-smearing assholes from trashing his house. So what does one do about all of this? Do what Bill Russell did – organize against evil, and excel at what God put you here to do. We can all do better, thanks to his example, and that’s all you can ask of anyone.

Ho hum, our “liberal” media seem to be against Chile’s draft constitution, though they can’t seem to decide whether that’s because it’s “undemocratic” or too democratic. They call it “woke,” a word that only right-wingers ever seem to use these days, or a “left-wing wish list,” and boy do Our Glorious Elites brutalize our language! Who thinks “wish list” are bad words, until some Thought Leader tells them to? My personal favorite moment, though, is when the right-wing hack says the proposed constitution “could destroy Chile’s economy, democracy and integrity as a nation.” I love how these clowns put “economy” before “democracy” and think no one can tell they’re sociopaths.

I’m sure the right-wing media had a field day with an unnamed Friend of Biden comparing this Administration’s first two years to Ronald Reagan’s first two years, and it’s true that the American Rescue Plan Act isn’t as consequential as the Kemp-Roth tax cut, nor has Mr. Biden had a defining moment comparable to Mr. Reagan’s firing of striking air traffic controllers. But I’d also say it’s no worse than 50-50 that the Biden Administration might actually turn America around – thanks to Lina Khan, Jonathan Kanter, and Rohit Chopra, mergers are going down, and I think our Federal Reserve’s interest-rate hikes will ultimately break the banksters’ hold on our economy, because why buy up real estate (or bitcoin!) just to show assets for cheap loans if you can’t get cheap loans anymore? Hell, why financialize the economy if you can't get cheap loans? To put it more poignantly: I wasn’t as optimistic about America in August of 2010, and I was more innocent then.

Jesus Mary and Joseph why on Earth does anyone care if Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D?-AZ) “was caught completely off guard” by the announcement of the Inflation Reduction Act? We’re not supposed to care about politicians’ feelings! They’re supposed to do their job, which is to listen to their constituents and do their constituents’ will. On that latter part, I understand that Sen. Sinema’s office has hemorrhaged staffers over the last two years, at least in part because they tire of taking angry calls from good Arizonans wondering why she’s not voting the right way. I’m not sure how many more ways can I say I hate drama.

Finally, I was going to say you can judge this article by its headline – "Democrats Are Dangerously Close To Changing Laws So Our President Is Elected By Popular Vote" – except that it’s actually much worse. Why? Not because the author assumes that anything the Founders wanted should stay; not, even, because he cries about tyranny like Donald Trump’s only obstacle to tyranny was his own bad character, but because he assumes that the Presidential election is the only election that matters and the “interests of the minority would naturally be set aside” if the popular vote won a Presidential election, as if there is literally no other way a “minority” could win legislative battles. We can set aside all the legislative battles rich minorities have been winning the last couple of decades, and just mention that Wyoming, for example, has two percent of all U.S. Senators despite having less than two one-thousandths of one percent of America’s population. You may be able to see why I have little patience with right-wingers whining about unheard “minorities.”

Around the table: in which we confront yet another (admittedly narrow) path to re-election for our President.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passes at the age of 87. I'm not sure I'd describe her as a "cautious" or "moderate" judge (though The Guardian ain't the only ones doing so), not just because judges aren't firebrands by temperament or job description, but also because she fought sexism and discrimination wherever she saw it long before it was popular, founding the ACLU's Women's Rights Project over 30 years before becoming the dean of our Supreme Court's liberal wing. May her memory be a blessing.

America's Last Journalist, Greg Palast, warns that our President could "win" re-election -- in the event of massive violent right-wing "protests" that prevent states from counting all the votes -- by invoking the 12th Amendment and throwing the election to the House. The House would vote for President by state under the 12th Amendment, and since Republicans hold majorities in 26 states even though Democrats have a 40-seat majority overall, our President would win. Mr. Palast's solution? Massive in-person day-of-election voting no matter how many Proud Boys show up, so as to make the results unmistakeable.

House Democrats have apparently decided to delay a vote on the MORE Act, a bill that would essentially legalize pot, until after the election -- supposedly to concentrate on a COVID-19 relief bill, even though they passed one of those (and a good one) in May and you have to wonder why haven't shouted that from the rooftops nearly enough, let alone slam Mob Boss Mitch for trying to pass a really crappy relief bill instead. This delay is cowardice, and stupid cowardice at that, since polls tell us pot legalization is actually popular. Democrats: so smart, they're stupid.

Upon learning that our Administration has threatened to defund Connecticut schools for participating in a trans-friendly athletic conference, I wonder how they would expect to win a lawsuit against such a thing, since such funding deprivation would affect all Connecticut students, but then I remember that a) his votaries think merely making the threat is "doing something" and b) folks can't sue them for every criminal act they perpetrate. About a) they're likely correct; about b) they're likely wrong, though all the bad judges they're putting in our federal courts might eventually change that.

In a peripherally-related note, our President says a COVID-19 vaccine will go out "immediately" to the public not because he really thinks that, but so people will say he "did something." A lot of his votaries won't even notice if they don't see a vaccine three days before Election Day -- which, given that it does actually take time to ensure a potential vaccine doesn't actually just shoot poison, seems far more likely than not. No matter, though -- if a vaccine doesn't come out "quickly enough," our President will just whine about how this is just more evidence that everyone's out to get him, which, strangely, doesn't seem offend all the "tough guys" who love him.

Finally, our President relates an MSNBC anchor getting shot by police at a protest thusly: "He got hit in the knee with a canister of tear gas and he went down. He was down. 'My knee, my knee.' Nobody cared, these guys didn’t care, they moved him aside. And they just walked right through...It was the most beautiful thing. No, because after we take all that crap for weeks and weeks, and you finally see men get up there and go right through them, wasn’t it really a beautiful sight? It’s called law and order." Ugh, first off: other people's suffering is not "beautiful"! Second, what "crap" did you take? Protesting police brutality hurts your fee-fees? Third, what a childish notion of "law and order" this is, one that merely worships raw power, and one our President would never, ever imagine includes putting polluters or banksters in jail.

Around the table: concerning health care policy, Presidential folly, and the Best Death Ever.

Second-largest physicians group in America calls for Medicare-for-All health insurance. And even though the American College of Physicians ain't the American Medical Association, their endorsement should give pause to right-wingers who might start bellowing WHY WON'T THEYZ LISTENZ TO TEH DOCTURZ!!!!!! You know, now that their Personal Lord and Savior has called our generals "dopes and babies" and rendered their criticisms of Barack Obama for "not listening to the generals" null and void? I kid, of course -- nothing gives right-wingers any pause. Sadly, it's one of the main reasons they win.

And here's the other reason right-wingers win: because right-wing Democrats like Hillary Clinton can't stay out of the spotlight. "Nobody likes him" may be the single most absurd thing she's ever said about anyone, let alone Bernie Sanders -- and we can't discount the possibility that she's jealous of all the big crowds he's drawn at his rallies over the years, or the formidable amount of money he's raised without having to cater to rich donors -- but it may indeed be her attempt to put yet another wedge between the liberals and the moderates in the Democratic party, so they come crawling to her later. You know, I criticize our current President a lot, but I praise him for this: he's given us the opportunity to break the wheel that churns out malicious Republicans and weak Democrats, and running to Hillary Clinton to save us would not be the best use of that opportunity.

Facing a crisis of its own making over its unsafe 737 MAX plane, Boeing looks to borrow at least $10 billion. And I suppose if they can't get a bank loan they'll come to the taxpayer, and our President will of course acquiesce, since he's so "tough" on corporations. And if he should give Boeing whatever it wants because of the jobs that'll otherwise go away, will he ask Boeing why it's spending $4 billion trying to buy another aircraft manufacturing corporation? I kid, of course -- no Glorious Elite will ever ask that of another Glorious Elite.

Once upon a time it would have meant something that our President called someone "one of our great geniuses" and compared him to Thomas Edison, but both our President and the "genius" in question, Elon Musk, are such assholes it doesn't mean very much anymore. Note well that our President praised him for creating a rocket that lands! Without wings! Our Glorious Elites always seem to grade each other on a curve. No truth to the rumor that our President then added "and he does good at self-driving cars, too. Why, they've only killed two people, and I heard they were not very nice people who said very bad things about me."

Finally, singer-songwriter David Olney dies onstage in the middle of performing a song at the 30A Songwriters Festival in Florida last Saturday night. He didn't "collapse" as some reports said; he actually seemed to nod off in the middle of a song, immediately after pausing and saying "I'm sorry" to his audience. I have no knowledge of his canon, but I have to say that dying mid-song is so the way to go. R.I.P.

Around the table: from unconstitutional watchlists to Presidential drama.

In a stunning and welcome development, a U.S. District Court judge has ruled that our government's "terrorist watchlist" is unconstitutional. As Paul Craig Roberts would say, if 2.1 million Americans are on a terrorism watchlist, why aren't we having major terrorist attacks every day? Of course you already know the answer, just like you know the answer to "why don't they charge these Guantánamo detainees with crimes after 15 years?" I do not look forward to our Supreme Court justifying the watchlist as an Executive branch prerogative in the "war on terror," but in the meantime, I feel the same as Hassan Shibly does: proud to be an American.

Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst actually tells townhall meeting attendees that Congressfolk need to "sit down behind closed doors so we’re not being scrutinized by this group or the other, and just have an open and honest conversation." After all, our representatives can only have "an open and honest conversation" if none of their constituents/bosses are listening to them! Ms. Ernst should also know that no one says "you're throwing Granny off a cliff!" when folks propose expanding Social Security -- only when folks propose hurting or destroying it. "Behind closed doors" really should be a career-ending utterance, but we can't be sure her eventual Democratic opponent will even bring it up.

You know our FBI prefers to harass black protestors as white supremacists actually shoot people up, but you may not know that our FBI also loves considering immigration activists as "violent extremists" even though they present no evidence of any immigration activists actually committing any violence. Don't worry, though -- entities like Fox News will just redefine "violence" until it includes "speaking out against injustice." After all, why should Our Glorious Elites be forced to endure criticism from people with First Amendment rights?

I get that obituaries of controversial figures will tend to avoid those figures' controversial nature, but the New York Times's obit of David Koch sure seems to go way over the top. He was a "man-about-town philanthropist," a "seemingly limitless storehouse of Elks club-inflected jokes," even a "playboy," not the founder of numerous right-wing think tanks that still pollute our discourse with bad arguments, or the founder of the corporation that has paid three quarters of a billion dollars in pollution fines and no doubt should have paid a lot more. What can you say, though? Elites gonna elite.

I'm a bit stunned that the normally outstanding ProPublica actually published a hit piece on Medicare-for-All -- a much higher-quality hit piece than you'd get from some health insurance industry hack, I'll grant, but seriously, why would we make Democratic Presidential candidates' prevarications the piece of dirt around which we form a pearl? Journalists would be on much surer ground actually reading the Medicare-for-All bill (which would explicitly let you keep your doctor and explicitly cover everything without copays, regardless of what the article's headline says) and wondering whether the bill that might eventually become law might not resemble it enough. (Oh, and that's not $32 trillion more over 10 years if the private health insurance industry goes away, it's $32 trillion total, which is still $17 trillion less than CMS has predicted we'll spend over that time. And rather than worry about how high taxes would go, we could fund it by assessing employers a fee per employee that'll be less than they're already paying for private health insurance. They'd be fools not to take the savings.)

Finally, Katha Pollitt at The Nation compiles an unfortunately-not-all-inclusive list of our President's misdeeds during the month of August, and it's a list undreamt of by the best mid-century satirists. I do not expect such a list to reach our President's votaries, of course, and I also suspect it won't reach Republicans inclined to say yes-he-acts-badly-but-judges-and-regulations. The 100 million or so people who didn't vote for President in 2016? Yeah, they might be receptive -- but only if the Democrats decide to offer an actual alternative in 2020. These folks are just gonna be "mad at both sides" if Joe Biden is the nominee. Indeed, that's surely the purpose of all our President's drama.

Around the table: in which we contemplate various apocalyptic dramas.

U.S. District Court Judge voids Utah's "ag-gag" law, ruling that it violates citizens' First Amendment rights. I find ag-gag supporters' arguments quite disgusting, not just in their indulgence of apocalyptic drama ("ZOMG TEH PETA IZ TRYINGZ TO DESTROYZ TEH FARMURZ!!!!!") but in their insistence that you either support people eating or you support animal rights' activists. As Judge Shelby says, the state "has a variety of constitutionally permissible tools at its disposal" to protect farms, but "suppressing broad swaths of protected speech without justification...is not one of them."

Simon Haeder at The Conversation tells us "Why Health Savings Accounts are a Bust for the Poor But a Boost for the Privileged." Of course this is because the poor don't make enough money to save, nor can they endure the high-deductible health insurance plan you need to start a health savings account, and thus only the relatively well-off can take advantage of it. It'll still shock you to hear people call health savings accounts "the new 401(k)," and some enterprising reporter should cite that phrase next time Paul Ryan talks about them. Also, too, do conservatives really believe HSAs will help people make "better choices"? You know what'll help people make better choices? When we make a world where folks don't feel like they have to run to stand still all the time.

Cora Currier at The Intercept finds some American border officials flat-out lying to asylum applicants in an apparent attempt to turn them away unlawfully. If you embrace the fact that civilization is supposed to be hard work, of course, you don't support this sort of thing, and if you're a law-and-order chest-thumper, you have no business supporting this sort of thing -- but if you're a Trump votary, who secretly admires how your Personal Lord and Savior has cheated his way through life, maybe you're fine with it, and if so, there's no talking to you.

President Trump suggests that British Prime Minister Theresa May "fix" the "press coverage" before he makes his trip across the Atlantic. To which I can only say: waaaaaaah! It's possible he's joking, I suppose, but really, if you're Donald Trump and you can't get the British tabloids on your side, that's your own damn fault. Besides, a lot of his votaries don't know he's joking -- they think he's expressing their sense of deprivation for them.

Finally, horror film director George Romero has died at the age of 77. If you've ever watched Walking Dead, and I bet you have, try to imagine it ever existing without Night of the Living Dead or Dawn of the Dead. Then consider that the former film cast a black man as the lead as if he were, you know, like anyone else, or as if he could be a hero in more or less the manner motion pictures made white folks heroes. And Dawn of the Dead is even better! Or maybe I just have a soft spot for apocalyptic films set in shopping malls.

Around the table: the death of Democratic populism, explained! And other things, also explained.

Matt Stoller at The Atlantic takes us back to the time "Democrats Killed Their Populist Soul" -- specifically, the time the "Watergate babies" that came into Congress in 1975 overthrew a populist anti-bank committee chair who had been in Congress for nearly half a century. Mr. Patman, a Texas House Rep, pretty much exemplifies all the contradictions about populism during the New Deal era -- he, like many populists and progressives of the era, was, at various times, a segregationist and a Vietnam War supporter, but his fierceness against bankster capitalism and corporate monopoly power remains unmatched by any member of Congress today, including Sen. Warren. Of course the whippersnappers who helped overthrow him also helped turn the Democratic party into the party of social liberalism, which essentially meant that economic populists were abandoned by both parties. Read the whole thing, though -- it's a marvelous history lesson, one that (as all great history lessons do) suggests what we can do about it if we only do it en masse.

Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals panel rules unanimously that torture is so unlawful that it's "beyond the power of even the president to declare such conduct lawful." You'd think a lot of right-wingers would applaud this decision, given that it declares the primacy of law and order over any faux-serious debate about military tactics, and restricts Presidential power just as the Founders intended, but instead they'll probably just yammer on about activist judges and that speech Jack Bauer gave on 24.

Dean Baker at TruthOut talks about the need to "retake the English language" when talking about "free" trade. He's made these points before, but he hasn't made them quite so clearly -- that it's literally impossible to call a trade pact a "free" trade deal if it codifies all sorts of policies, like expanding patent and copyright protections, that actually restrict trade, and a trade pact can hardly be a "free" trade when tariffs are already historically low. Also, too, "(t)he real story here is that the TPP is a deal about redistributing more income upward. It's imposing more competition on those at the middle and the bottom while maintaining and increasing forms of protectionism that benefits those at the top."

One more note for those whippersnappers supposedly thinking of voting for Gary Johnson: Gary Johnson doesn't like net neutrality. He can't really tell you why, either: his answer (from a 2011 interview) essentially boils down to government does it, so it's bad. Refuse to do anything because of "unintended consequences" and guess what? You will never do anything, because everything has unintended consequences. I know what the fully-intended consequences of opposing net neutrality are, though: that corporations, not you, will control your internet experience. It's bad enough they control your cable TV experience, though if we passed a strong a la carte cable packaging bill, we could change that.

A former porn star accuses Donald Trump of inappropriately kissing her, with Mr. Trump retorting, "I'm sure she's never been grabbed before." Why he recast her accusation as "grabbing" rather than "kissing" is unclear, unless he thought it made a better zinger, but no porn star deserves to be grabbed or kissed without their permission merely because they've done the deed in a movie -- using what happens under a contract to describe consent is moronic. (As an aside, why is he saying he'll sue all these women if he becomes President? Why not now?)

Finally, notorious cartoonist Jack Chick, purveyor of short, primitively-drawn religious tracts that have inspired mirth and scorn from young folks for decades, has died at the age of 92. Mr. Chick's little pamphlets, which religious folks have often distributed for free, rail against the occult, Catholicism, Communism, Islam, drugs, and homosexuality, among so, so many other things, and though of course I disagree profoundly with his notion that your only choice is either to believe in Jesus or go to hell, I must admit that he had a fierceness about him I can't help but admire -- a fierceness he could turn on himself occasionally, it seems. I'd be glib to say I'd feel differently about him if he'd taken over the world, because that was never going to happen -- he wasn't good enough at disguising his aims, possibly because he never tried. R.I.P.

Around the table: Muhammad Ali, R.I.P.

Neurodiversity activist Nick Walker offers up "Advice for Parents of Autistic Kids." His first bit of advice is "don't panic" upon discovering your child is autistic, which is good advice for any endeavor, but especially so in a society that sensationalizes and fearmongers about autism. You'll also learn that a lot of the things autistic folks do that seem odd (including "stimming" and moving repetitively) actually calm them down and prevent meltdowns, so we shouldn't stamp out these coping tools. Total time of video: 18 minutes, 22 seconds, all of it necessary.

Noam Chomsky weighs in on the Obama legacy. His assessment is apt -- things are a little better under Mr. Obama than under Mr. Bush, but if you recall the multitudes who camped out at the mall weeks in advance of President Obama's inauguration there, you're bound to be heartbroken. I rarely consider it, for that reason. Of course, our job is the same now as it was then -- to make the politicians do our will no matter who they are, no matter what party they belong to, no matter who they think they have to please to keep their jobs.

Speaking of things that are a "little better under Mr. Obama," the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has finally released its proposed rule changes for payday lenders. The CFPB would force payday lenders to check borrowers' ability to repay and limit their ability to "roll over" loans -- which latter practice traps borrowers in a death spiral of debt. We could make improvements, but then that's what the public comment period is for, isn't it? When I get action alerts, so will you.

Janine Jackson, writing at FAIR, tells us that, in this election season, "The People Are the Story -- and Corporate Media Are Missing It." Which is no surprise to you, since you already know that the "liberal" media always aims to sideline you, to make you a spectator in a political drama rather than the protagonist, which is your actual role in a democracy. We'll just have to keep charging the stage.

"Liberal" media punditoid Mark Halperin protests that we can't actually call Donald Trump a racist for slamming a Mexican-American judge handling a case in which he's a defendant because "Mexico isn't a race." "Racially-tinged," he'll admit, and I'm so glad we split that hair! Never mind that Mr. Trump, in issuing multitudinous pronouncements about the Mexican's supposed propensity for rape and drugs and murder, treats "Mexican" as a race! Seriously, this is why Americans hate smart people.

Finally, legendary boxer Muhummad Ali has died at the age of 74. His decades-long bout with Parkinson's syndrome (brought on, most observers think, by the repeated pummeling he took in the ring) has helped obscure not just his early political stances -- his discarding his "slave name," his refusal to fight in the Vietnam War -- but how he took back all the things the state took from him because of his politics and emerged even stronger in the 1970s, ultimately leading Reggie Jackson to testify that "(t)he entire experience of being black changed for millions of people because of Ali." He truly handcuffed lightning and threw thunder in jail. R.I.P.

Around the table: R.I.P., Prince Rogers Nelson.

Federal Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit overturns a Virginia school board's policy forcing transgendered students to use the bathroom of their birth gender. The Court cited (among other things) the board's ignorance of federal rules emanating from the Department of Education, which could mean trouble for North Carolina's public schools -- if they want to continue receiving federal funding, that is. Oh well, they can always secede.

Nick Hanauer and Robert Reich explain that, contra "the right’s end-of-the-world, Chicken-Little economics," the Labor Department's expansion of overtime will help working families, not hurt them, and it won't hurt businesses, either. Good to see someone treating the right's objections with the respect they deserve, i.e., none. I mean, how can right-wingers simultaneously argue about the natural supremacy of entrepreneurs and these same entrepreneurs' inability to wriggle free of the "burden" of paying more of their employees time-and-a-half when they work overtime? (And saying the rules will hurt working families is what, class? Besides the opposite of the truth, I mean? A hostage situation, that's what.)

FISA court finds that the NSA is -- get your surprised face ready! -- holding onto the data it vacuums up from its indiscriminate surveillance of Americans for longer than it's supposed to. And our government failed to inform them of this fact! "The NSA apparently can't even tell the truth to a court in which it has the luxury of making its submissions ex parte and whose decisions aren't released until months after the fact in heavily-redacted form," writer Tim Cushing tells us, with an almost British understatement. Which instructs us that the main difference between the Bush and Obama Administrations on government spying -- aside from the Obama Administration doing a lot more of it, of course! -- is that the Obama Administration sounds smarter when doing it.

In the wake of the FCC's efforts to open up the cable set-top box market, Comcast announces a deal with Samsung in which some Samsung TV owners can use an app instead of a box. Naturally, Comcast is doing a Jeff George Victory Lap about the whole thing, but, ah, what if you don't own a Samsung TV? Or a Samsung TV that wasn't manufactured this year? Or if you move to an area of the country where Comcast hasn't dug in its tentacles? Also, the cloud-DVR function Comcast offers in conjunction with the app would also cost money. Yup, no need for government "interference" here.

Finally, in the wake of Prince's passing, Dylan Matthews lists 14 songs that testify to his legendary status, as a musician and as a creature (and creator!) of his times. I'm bummed he doesn't include 1995's "P Control," which exemplifies Prince's devotion to "women's sexuality, experience, and power" even more than the titles listed, but if you're of a certain age, you'll connect with most of it. I'm reminded, also, of my surprise when Casey Kasem called "1999" a protest song, though of course "1999" is more than a protest song, just as "When You Were Mine" is more than a song about a threesome.

Around the table: Danny Schechter, R.I.P.

Citizens for Tax Justice evaluates the Republican House budget proposal, and finds it wanting. Key problems: their budget proposal repeals the Medicare tax expansion enacted in the Affordable Care Act and the Alternative Minimum Tax, though doing so would give a windfall to wealthy Americans, and allows the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit to expire, though doing so would put the hit on working families. It really is like Republicans are trying to do everything wrong.

Then again, two far-right Republicans stun an audience of scientists and activists by insisting that our federal government desperately needs to fund cancer research more than it does. "I think I can go to my 16-month old daughter and I can say, 'I borrowed money in your name to cure cancer' and she would thank me," Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-KS) said, and I only wish the rest of his party had a similar perspective -- instead, the House budget will almost certainly require cuts in NIH spending, because DEFICITZ!!!!

Two Oklahoma Congressdolts suggest that Chipotle's work in keeping animal abuse out of its supply chain justifies letting corporations do whatever they like because of their "religious conscience." "We must not fall prey to the hypocrisy of defending the freedom of operating a business on convictions of sustainability, but reject that same freedom when the convictions are based in faith," they write. Lousy parallel construction aside, we must reject codifying "convictions...based in faith" that run roughshod over other people's rights. Next up on Fox News: did Chipotle violate the rights of a pork supplier by cutting ties with them? It's a serious question!

Ho hum, Gov. Walker (E-WI) extolls the virtues of rural health care-related programs that his brand new budget just so happens to cut completely. And at least one of those programs -- the one helping doctors do residencies in rural areas -- started under his Democratic predecessor. Given the evasiveness of his spokeshack, Gov. Walker seems to think ignoring this little problem will make it go away -- an explicable calculation, given the "liberal" media's laziness. But if, say, Jeb Bush notices the problem, then the "liberal" media will have to cover it. Come to think of it, Scott Walker's never won a competitive primary, has he?

Fox News talking head, addressing President Obama's statements about mandatory voting, says "Do we really want everybody voting? I don’t think so!" I find it stupefying that anyone would say that -- if you think everyone around you is stupid, the problem is you, and if you're worried about stupid people voting, you train them up, as we say at work. Of course, in my experience, people who go on about "stupid people voting" are really worried those people won't vote the same way they do.

Finally, long-time media producer and News Dissector blogger Danny Schechter has died at the age of 72. It would be difficult to underestimate his influence on our work here, especially in this blog's early days. While I never saw his most famous Bush Mobb-era film, WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception, I do highly recommend his 2006 film In Debt We Trust, made in the immediate aftermath of that nefarious bankruptcy "reform" law and in the climate of the housing bubble that gave banksters the ammunition they needed to bring down our economy.

Around the table: R.I.P. Leonard Nimoy, and other stories.

The Intercept credits an "unprecedented guerilla activism campaign" for the FCC's approval of vigorous net neutrality rules on Thursday, and it's true that we need folks who will get in decision-makers' faces to get things done as much as we need folks who contact our government day after day, year after year. Author Lee Fang also suggests that the complete lack of an "insider-grand bargaining political style" to the net neutrality fight greatly helped our success, which is a terrific way of saying government needs to stop talking only to its own various factions and start talking to the American people. We can encourage them to do that, of course.

Also from the good news file, President obama vetoed Congressional legislation that would have forced Executive branch approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. Of course, the Executive branch's own process, including a State Department environmental review, might still recommend approval, but we'll keep encouraging them to do the right thing. And I hope Mr. Obama is fully cognizant by now that right-wingers will never approve of anything he does. He has, after all, given himself plenty of opportunities to learn that lesson.

A South Carolina bill would put pro-gun, NRA-sponsored curricula in public schools. And as someone generally sanguine toward gun ownership, and one who wouldn't even object to firearms training in public schools under the right circumstances, I say this bill is bat-guano insane like the rest of the professional gun-rights movement. Having the NRA do the curriculum (versus, oh, I don't know, teachers) is corporate welfare simple and plain. And yes they chose December 15 as their little Second Amendment Day because they're pricks. And saying gun manufacturer PTR relocated from Connecticut to South Carolina because it "didn't feel supported" after the Sandy Hook shootings makes gun manufacturers sound like whiners, which is, I would think, not the image they'd want to project. It's getting harder and harder to be pro-gun in America.

Under some pressure, the New York state Department of Education issues new restrictions on restraining and suspending students. We have retained some semblance of civilized behavior, to be telling teachers they need to resort to de-escalation of conflicts before calling 911 on out-of-control students. It would also help if we'd show fewer celebrity tantrums on TV. A lot of these folks just aren't good role models.

Speaking of which, actor/director/poet/musician Leonard Nimoy, most famous as Mr. Spock from Star Trek, has died at the age of 83. It would be hard to overestimate the positive effect Mr. Nimoy's Spock has had on popular culture: the calm, logical, and loyal First Officer taught us that diversity need not be feared, that passion need not be loud, and, perhaps most importantly, that intelligence not only makes you powerful but integral to your community. The man will be missed, but his work will, if you'll forgive me, live long and prosper.

Around the table: so long, Tom Magliozzi, and thanks for all the perfectly good hours wasted.

Surprise, surprise, another report finds Americans paying more for slower broadband than folks in other lands, but an innovative solution stands at the ready: community broadband. Not just in Seoul, South Korea, where gigabit internet is just $30 monthly, but in Chattanooga, TN, which just cut its gigabit service to $70/month, and Lafayette, LA, which now offers broadband service at just over $100/month. Google Fiber is doing pretty well in Kansas City, too, but mostly the big broadband corporations seem like they'd rather squash community broadband efforts than improve their own service. And last I looked, being conservative didn't actually mean opposing all government efforts everywhere.

The IRS releases tax bracket information for the year 2015, relating to the taxes you'll pay before April 15, 2016. Standard deductions will go up rather a little, by my reckoning, but limits on itemized deductions for income over roughly $250,000 will come back. Kelly Phillips Erb at Forbes helpfully lists other things you might need to know about the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Child Tax Credit, the Alternative Minimum Tax (now helpfully indexed to inflation so it doesn't become a political football every year!), the Estate Tax, IRA contributions, and the like.

Speaking of taxes, Mike Konczal and Bryce Covert remind us that when folks debate taxing the rich more aggressively, they miss one critical point: that "(t)axes don't just produce revenue; they are capable of restructuring how the whole economy works." For a long time I've been saying that a 91% tax on millionaire income, for example, will discourage executives from paying themselves exorbitant amounts of money and will actually encourage them to invest in projects that help other folks make money, since the only other alternative is leaving that money in the corporation as profits, which also get taxed. Perhaps not coincidentally, Messrs. Konczal and Covert find that the rich-poor gap has gotten worse in nations that have slashed top income rates.

Russia conducts a massive purge of school textbooks, and that purge seems to benefit one of President Putin's textbook-publishing friends the most -- a friend who just so happens to own the textbook-publishing concern that dominated schools during the Soviet days. Even the corruption is bigger in Russia! And so is the bureaucracy -- right-wingers who complain about "oppressive" anti-pollution regulations in America should read this story and see how it's really done. They may wind up reconsidering whether Mr. Putin is really a "conservative" hero just because he hates gays and rides horses without a shirt on, but who am I to deny folks growth experiences?

Finally, one of the hosts of NPR's extremely and justifiably popular show Car Talk has died; Tom Magliozzi was 77. Though Car Talk ceased production in 2012 after a 25-year run, you can still hear reruns on your local NPR station, probably into eternity. I have no particular love for cars myself, but I still spent (or, as brothers Tom and Ray always said at the end of a show, "wasted") many perfectly good hours listening to Car Talk, and I expect I'll spend many more.

Around the table: gay marriage, terrorism, net neutrality, vaccination, and the death of an archetypical radio voice.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, pressed on his stance on gay marriage, actually goes wobbly, saying "it really doesn't matter what I think now" because gay marriage is "in the Constitution." Yes, his job is to enforce the law, not dictate it, but "it really doesn't matter what I think now" does reek of whining, not to mention evading, and if I were Mary Burke, I'd hit him hard on his refusal to take a specific stand on an issue he's taken very specific stands on before. I wouldn't place too much hope in this misstep, though -- after all, it seemed like George W. Bush changed his mind on gay marriage every week in 2004.

FAIR asks, "When is Terrorism Not Terrorism?" The answer? Generally, when it's committed by non-Muslims on the far right. Best part: when the Brookings Institute's Daniel Bynum says the media doesn't use the word "terrorist" on far-rightists because "many of the objectives (of right-wing extremist groups) are close enough to legitimate political movements" that it'd offend actual far-rightists who don't go around shooting people. But how do these far-right political movements become "legitimate" in the first place? Partly because they get a lot of corporate money, but also because the "liberal" media enables them.

FCC says it'll investigate the numerous reports of internet "traffic jams," many of which apparently involve Netflix. I've noticed my own internet surfing slowing down noticeably since the FCC brought out its anti-net neutrality net neutrality platform, and I don't think I'm paranoid to notice that. But I'm not going to blame Netflix users, and CEOs who complain that Netflix users are traffic hogs might want to consider, I don't know, breaking off some of their nine-figure salaries to put some more servers in and hire some more people to maintain them. I have so little patience for people who won't do the right thing because it's hard.

Surprise, surprise: scientists find that a 2011 measles outbreak in Minnesota that sickened 19 children started when one unvaccinated child went to Kenya and brought measles back with him. It gets worse: nine of the 19 infected children were unvaccinated, and most of those nine had parents who feared their children would get autism, even though scientists have thoroughly debunked the "research" claiming a link between vaccines and autism. I repeat: scientists have thoroughly debunked the "research" claiming a link between vaccines and autism. I said it twice because I thought it would do twice as much good.

Finally, very sad news: radio announcer and voice artist Casey Kasem has died at the age of 82. He was the archetypical voice of my youth, not just from NBC voiceovers and cartoons like Scooby Doo and Battle of the Planets, but as the voice of American Top 40, where he spun records, told stories, and kept gentle guard over a significant part of our nation's popular culture over four decades. And he was also the fiery liberal who didn't feel right announcing "I Want Your Sex" as the nation's number one song. We need more like him.

Around the table: inequality and capitalism, Pete Seeger and the South, and George Zimmerman's next endeavor, among other stories.

NYT op-ed describes forthcoming book by economist Thomas Piketty, which suggets that inequality is a feature of capitalism, not a bug, and that capitalism ultimately destroys democracy unless we impose "confiscatory tax rates" on our wealthiest members. The assertion that Mr. Piketty's book "defies left and right orthodoxy" doesn't convince me at all -- the main problem the two quoted left-of-center economists seem to have with Mr. Piketty is his pessimism. I also suspect Mr. Piketty's book would only represent "watershed" thinking among decadent elites, not normal folks like us.

Chris Kromm at the Institute for Southern Studies writes about how Pete Seeger's experiences in the South shaped his career. Mr. Seeger passed away last week at the age of 94, as you no doubt know. We go from the moment Mr. Seeger first saw Samantha Bumgarner play the banjo in North Carolina to Mr. Seeger's work assisting Texan folklorist Alan Lomax to his association with Arkansan (and later co-Weaver) Lee Hayes -- and this only takes us up to 1940.

Citizens for Tax Justice laments the sheer number of tax cut proposals emanating from 14 states and the District of Columbia, mostly from Republican-dominated states but n.b. that Democrat Andrew Cuomo of New York gets the biggest paragraph. The good news? A lot of these proposals meet solid resistance, even in states like Oklahoma -- and you remember how badly Louisiana Gov. Jindal's regressive proposals crashed and burned in illiberal Louisiana last year.

Paul Waldman proposes that right-wingers' irrational hatred of Hillary Clinton could aid her in a 2016 Presidential bid. Unless, of course, Republicans just pretend it never happened, which they're very good at, and which the "liberal" media is very good at enabling -- and which whitewashing will be made easier, not harder, by the fact that you'll have people voting in 2016 who were mere infants when the House impeached Bill Clinton.

Damon Linker asks if a defamation lawsuit by a leading climate scientist will "doom" the National Review. I'm not exclaiming we can only hope! only because defamation is, and should be, a difficult charge to prove, albeit one Mark Steyn is making easier by running his mouth. But William F. Buckley, Jr.'s commitment to "excommunicating" the "cranks" has always been overrated -- the man was once a white supremacist himself! -- and the magazine certainly doesn't perform that task for the conservative movement now.

Finally, George Zimmerman, lately acquitted of wrongdoing for his shooting of Trayvon Martin, plans to take part in a celebrity boxing match for charity. At least one rapper has stepped up and said he'd like to join the match, but I suspect the number of people who'd like to throw a punch at Mr. Zimmerman is much, much longer than that. (At least one commenter warns, half-jokingly or less, of the possibility Mr. Zimmerman might hide a handgun in his spit bucket.)

The Supreme Court rules, in Maryland v. King, that it's A-OK to take DNA from suspects without a warrant because DNA is like, you know, fingerprints and stuff, and John W. Whitehead eviscerates their logic. Warning: you'll find Antonin Scalia on the right side of an argument, as happens more often than the Stopped Clock Rule would explain. What the hell is the matter with getting a damn warrant? Life ain't 24.

Sen. Lautenberg's untimely death has already led right-wingers to warn New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R) that selecting some moderate to replace him in the interim will finish him in 2016. More likely, Mr. Christie tells far right-wingers to go to hell, sooner rather than later, and those right-wingers vote for him in large numbers anyway in 2016, given how much of a rage they've let themselves get whipped up into over SOSHALIZM!!!!!! -- and if Mr. Christie does win in 2016, which is far from unlikely, he's going to do a lot of their bidding anyway.

Conor Freidsdorf at The Atlantic notes that Bill O'Reilly planned to repeat his 2008 radio rant against right-wing "Kool-Aid-drinking idiots" on his more-widely-viewed TV program that night, but backed down in the face of pressure from then-Fox head Roger Ailes. What Mr. Freidsdorf forgets is that Bill O'Reilly criticized right-wing talk radio for opposing the Bush bailout -- the one time right-wing talk radio was on the side of the angels! -- and while Mr. O'Reilly only alluded to Rush Limbaugh in that rant, he called out Barney Frank and Chris Dodd by name.

Finally, former Rep. Allen West (R-FL) has converted his House campaign account into a federal Political Action Committee, called the Deep Strike PAC. It sounds like a damn porn film!

Remember when San Jose Mercury-News reporter Gary Webb detailed an unholy trinity comprising the CIA, the Contras, and inner-city crack cocaine dealers? And remember how other big newspapers conducted an unfair smear campaign against him, making him persona non grata in the journalism biz and partly causing his suicide? Well, one of his inquisitors, an ex-L.A. Times reporter named Jesse Katz, has apologized for the whole thing. Great timing, dude -- even the suicide was nine years ago. I hope Zombie Gary Webb eats his brain.

Bad news, everyone: the Vermont state Senate did pass a GMO labeling law -- but it would only go into effect if four other states pass similar laws. To allay corporate "concerns" about having to label their food differently, I presume. You'd think these Frankenfood manufacturers all hired monks with quill pens to write their food labels.

Citizens for Tax Justice reports that Apple, lately the subject of Congressional investigation for tax avoidance, is hardly alone among multinational corporations in sending money to overseas tax havens. But we've been talking about this for years now, and all our Congressfolk do is pretend that making it worse (a territorial tax system? Are you kidding?) will solve the problem. We need to get new Congressfolk.

Actress Jean Stapleton, most famous as All in the Family's Edith Bunker, dies at 90. That's a big chunk of my childhood gone -- that voice (which wasn't her voice at all, as you know if you saw her in anything else!) filled my living room in the '70s. And Edith wasn't dumb or naive, no -- All in the Family often ended with five minutes of her explaining the meaning of the first 20 minutes to Gloria.

Also, U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) dies at 89. I always liked him -- he was my Senator for many years -- but I had forgotten that he's the main reason we have a national drinking age of 21, the main reason you can't smoke on airplanes, and the main reason over 350,000 Jews and others were able to leave oppressive regimes after 1990. That's a pretty good CV, especially for a Senator who spent his entire career in the post-New Deal era.

a lesson about backbone.

Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) died yesterday, possibly of complications from gall bladder surgery. Mr. Murtha was a lifelong conservative-to-moderate back-bencher as well as a legendary procurer of pork for his district, but I prefer to remember him as the first Democrat who ever stood up to George W. Bush. Though he was an early Iraq war hawk, he became concerned enough about the war's toll on the armed services that he called for an immediate pullout of American troops from Iraq in late 2005, at which point Mr. Cheney suggested Mr. Murtha had lost his "backbone." Mr. Murtha, a Vietnam vet, promptly responded that Mr. Cheney had received five deferments to stay out of Vietnam, and as such really had no standing to challenge his "backbone" -- and, perhaps not coincidentally, the tone of both Messrs. Bush and Cheney changed dramatically the following week.

Sadly, not even five years later, Democrats seem to have forgotten the lesson Mr. Murtha taught: that bullies are weak, and need to be slapped down. Shame on them.