Thieves in the Temple.

Action: net neutrality, tailpipe emissions, and "free" trade.

Now both CREDO and Color of Change help you tell FCC Chair Tom Wheeler to ensure that internet service providers don't censor websites or let you see some websites faster than others. "Imagine Comcast penalizing subscribers for accessing news sources not owned by its NBC subsidiary," Color of Change's Rashard Robinson writes. "Imagine AT&T shutting off access to T-Mobile's customer service website, or Verizon charging you -- and the school you're attending -- extra for you to access classroom resources online. ISPs are now legally permitted, and more financially incentivized than ever before, to engage in precisely these types of predatory behaviors." By opposing net neutrality -- by hamstringing your ability to do what you want on the internet -- all that happens is they make more money, and they call the rest of us "free riders" even though we already pay them to use their services. If anything, the big telecoms are free riders, treating money they haven't earned as some sort of entitlement.

Meanwhile, the Environmental Defense Fund helps you tell President Obama to keep our air cleaner through strong tailpipe emissions standards. The EPA's proposed tailpipe emissions standards would simultaneously mandate improvements in auto engines (so that new cars pollute less) and require improvements in gasoline (so that older vehicles also pollute less); they would cut the amount of soot, sulfur, benzene, and carbon monoxide our cars put into the atmosphere, and thus also cut incidents of heart and lung disease. America's automobile manufacturers have long been onboard with stronger tailpipe emissions, so why hasn't the EPA finished the job yet? Apparently, because oil corporations aren't on board. But we've seen the danger of trying to get everyone to work together all the time. when some people refuse to work with anyone else, you don't keep trying to work with them. You work around them.

Finally, we've no doubt written our Reps and Senators about rejecting fast-track authority for "free" trade deals -- especially ones that subjugate our labor and environmental laws to corporate whim, that allow big corporations to censor anyone they like on the internet -- so Public Citizen helps you call your Reps and tell them to vote against fast-track. Congress needs to know that almost no one in America, no matter their ideological orientation, wants the Trans-Pacific "Partnership" to pass. Conservatives may or may not think much of environmental laws and labor laws, but they certainly do not want to see all our laws subjugated to the will of some "investor-state tribunal," nor do conservatives value freedom on the internet any less than liberals do. This Congress may well be known for doing nothing except transferring the people's power to the corporations. You'd think they'd want history to treat them better than that. It won't, unless they do our will.

Action: corporate "personhood," a living wage in D.C., and energy efficiency for American buildings.

Public Citizen helps you tell your Reps and Senators to sign on to a Constitutional amendment banning corporate "personhood." The reason is simple: corporations aren't people, they're things, and their money distorts our political process to the point where you can't even get a Constitutional amendment passed that almost seven in 10 Republicans think is a good idea. Almost 70% of Republicans, I say again using the italics hammer! Nine in 10 Americans want antibiotics out of feed animals, but the FDA just can't find the will to do it, because factory farms flood the process with money. Nine in 10 Americans want foods with genetically-modified ingredients to be labeled as such, but the USDA can't find the will to do that, either, because big ag corporations flood the process with money. Just about zero percent of Americans want corporations to cheat on their taxes, but Congress won't do anything about it, because corporations flood the process with money. When corporations aren't "people" any more, maybe we can stop them from trampling all over our will.

Meanwhile, Washington, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray vetoed the city council's Large Retailer Accountability Act, which would have made big box stores pay D.C. workers a living wage. Just in case you were thinking one-party rule by Democrats means the people have more say than the corporations (a lesson we're constantly learning in our great city of Philadelphia as well). But D.C.'s City Council has the wherewithal to override the veto; let's see if they have the will. Daily Kos helps you tell five D.C. City Council folks on the fence to help override the Mayor's veto of the Large Retailer Accountability Act. Apparently, we only need one of those five for the override, if everyone else votes the way they voted when the bill was in Council. WalMart was looking to open six stores in the D.C. area, and now they say they might not, although they know as well as anyone else that sales have been a bit sluggish because folks just aren't spending as much money. Jesus Mary and Joseph how do they think folks get money to spend at Walmart?

Finally, if you missed last week's action alert demanding that the Senate pass a clean (so to speak) building efficiency bill rather than one with a whole slew of pro-pollution amendments attached to it, then the League of Conservation Voters provides another one. So what's happened to the bill in question (S. 1392) since late last week? Well, Congress.gov counts an astounding 85 amendments to this bill as of this writing; some are good, most are irrelevant (including many that would delay or repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act), and some are actually dangerous. A short list of the dangerous ones: S.A. 1853, from Sens. Barrasso, Enzi, and Flake, would prohibit the EPA from regulating carbon emissions; S.A. 1865, from Sens. Toomey, Coburn, Flake and Risch, would repeal the Clean Air Act's renewable energy standard; S.A. 1890, from Sen. Thune, would interfere with the EPA's efforts to stem tailpipe emissions, and S.A. 1913, from Sen. Paul, would end regulation of plumbing supplies (I shudder to think why!). Mention some, or all, of these when you talk to your Congressfolk.

Action: zombie copyright proposals, tailpipe emissions, and (for the last time) fracking on public lands.

The Obama Administration's Department of Commerce has proposed that streaming copyrighted content should be a felony -- perhaps not coincidentally, a proposal once part of the notorious SOPA, which we defeated in 2011. The Commerce Department's Internet Policy Task Force apparently hasn't differentiated between actual piracy and fair use, because anyone performing a copyrighted song on youtube (and there's a lot of that on youtube these days) would get jail time. While no civilized person approves of folks making money from (for example) bootleg DVDs of first-run films, sentencing someone to years in prison because they put up a video of folks singing "Happy Birthday" is exactly what we're trying to stop doing. Demand Progress helps you tell our government to stop with these zombie copyright proposals already.

Meanwhile, Consumers Union helps you tell the EPA to back strong tailpipe emissions standards. Why? So that we can dramatically reduce air pollution from gasoline -- by CU's estimate, the EPA's proposed standards would be the equivalent of taking 33 million cars off the road, and though cars ain't the only thing on the road, that's a big deal. And when we reduce air pollution, we reduce all the health issues that come with air pollution, and thus also all the health care spending that comes with air pollution. Just about everyone's behind this plan, even the big carmakers. Who's not behind the plan? The oil corporations, naturally, because they care so much about the price of gas going up a penny per gallon when just about everyone on Earth knows they can poop money with the profits they already have. So don't be shy.

Finally, today is the last day to comment on the Bureau of Land Management's proposal which would allow fracking on public lands (and which would not force gas drillers to disclose the chemicals and toxins they're putting into our water table). On public lands, I reiterate using the italics hammer -- that means in places like the George Washington National Forest, the Red Rock Canyon area, and the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, and these places all have streams and groundwater that we'll wind up drinking from. And, once more with the italics hammer, public lands are our lands. So both Public Citizen and the Center for Effective Government help you leave a public comment about the BLM proposal, while Food and Water Watch helps you call President Obama and tell him do the right thing.

Congress is off for most of the month, praise the Lord, so we get a chance to catch up on our progress on several fronts.

It probably won't surprise you to learn that the State Department's Inspector General will investigate possible ethics violations concerning the most recent draft of State's environmental impact report on the Keystone XL pipeline, but the Inspector General has also frowned upon the last report, so this could all be theatre. I'd prefer to believe the best of people, even politicians, but still, the Sierra Club still helps you tell Secretary Kerry to make State's environmental impact report reflect sound science, not oil industry biases.

H.R. 1010/S. 460, the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013, has 143 House sponsors and 31 Senate sponsors, but remains stuck in committee in both houses -- in the House, actually, it's stuck in subcommittee. You'd think Congress would recognize a good idea supported by over two-thirds of the American public as a sure winner, but this is Congress we're talking about. Never mind calling the House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections -- John Boehner's number is 202.225.6205. You can find Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pension Committee members here, or you can take more action at Ralph Nader's new website here.

Tier 3 tailpipe emissions, as you know, enjoy support from both environmentalists and automobile manufacturing corporations -- but not big oil, no, sir. Think big oil gets all us-against-the-world like pro sports teams do? If so, they're just another group of millionaires who waste their time cultivating a false sense of oppression. Gina McCarthy has been EPA Administrator for about seven minutes now, so the Union of Concerned Scientists helps you tell Ms. McCarthy to set the strongest tailpipe standards available, so we get less asthma and less cancer and suchlike. I do not believe you'd be double-commenting if you use this tool and if you've already submitted a public comment.

On the fracking front, the Bureau of Land Management still thinks allowing gas drillers to frack all over public lands while telling us little about the chemicals they're pumping into our water is a swell idea. After all, some corporation's "trade secrets" are so, so much more important than the possibility that you're ingesting poisonous crap. (End sarcasm.) The public comment period ends on August 23rd, so if you've missed previous opportunities to give the BLM what-for about their dumb rules, Breast Cancer Action still helps you do that.

Finally, hard to believe, but the USDA is still mulling whether to let chicken processing corporations do most of their own inspecting, and leave a mere one federal inspector per plant to look at almost 200 birds a minute and hope they spot the feces and blood and pus that would make a contaminated chicken a bad meal at the dinner table. Privatization -- it always works, except when it doesn't work, which is always. It gets better: one way the USDA plan would "make up for" the lack of chicken inspectors is to allow corporations to spray their chickens with more dangerous chemicals. It sounds like a Bush Mobb plan, except Tha Bush Mobb's USDA actually functioned better than this. One is tempted to ask why USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack couldn't be burned out by Cabinet work like Hillary Clinton was at State, and one is tempted to answer that winding down two wars slowly enough for all the corporate mercenaries to get their cut is harder work than just rubber-stamping whatever big agricultural corporations tell you. Anyway, the fact that they're still taking comments on this plan tells me they're still not getting enough comments from people who are perfectly happy to get salmonella if it means some CEO gets to gild his plumbing, so Food and Water Watch helps you tell the USDA to drop this dumb chicken inspection privatization plan already.

The Supreme Court struck down DOMA on Wednesday, but that only helps gay marriages in the 15 states where it's legal; Pennsylvania is not one of these. Hence Keystone Progress helps you tell your Governor and state legislators to legalize gay marriages in the Keystone state. If you see that as an uphill battle, remember that gay marriage opponents have failed to pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage five times since 2006, with their latest attempt in May attracting only 27 co-sponsors so far. Of course, they can still prevent gay marriages in Pennsylvania by doing nothing. But I'm going to go out on a limb and presume that there might actually still be some actual conservatives in Pennsylvania's legislature -- like the ones who scuttled Mr. Corbett's voucher bill in 2011 because it would have cost too much money -- and that the reactionary sheen the legislature's taken on since Mr. Corbett's election is just a fever, curable via application of the popular will.

Meanwhile, Mr. Obama began his trip to Africa this week, and Amnesty International helps you tell Mr. Obama to condemn anti-gay discrimination while there. 38 African countries prosecute homosexuality as a crime, and four of these mandate the death penalty for said "crime." But why do we care what Mr. Obama says over there? Because what he said over here made a big difference, that's why -- even though his stated position back in May of 2012 wasn't that different from Dick Cheney's, even though he let Joe Biden lead the charge on that position change, it was still a big deal, because he's the President and what the President says matters to us, whether we want that to be true or not, whether we agree with him or not. And maybe, just maybe, what he says will matter to Africans, too. What's it going to hurt? Are things going to get worse for gays in Africa because of some perceived impertinence on Mr. Obama's part? It can't get much worse than death.

In other news, the New York City Council overrode a Mayor Bloomberg veto of their paid sick leave law this week, meaning that businesses with 20 or more employees will have to grant five paid sick days annually to their workers, and by 2015, businesses with 15-19 employees will have to do the same. It's not even every worker in New York City, but it is a start -- and, as you know, New York is a big place, so it could catch on. And yet America is also a big place, hence Moms Rising helps you tell your Congressfolk to support H.R. 1286/S. 631, the Healthy Families Act, which would mandate businesses employing more than 15 people to offer seven days of paid sick leave annually. Mayor Bloomberg, just like a good right-winger, bemoans costs to businesses and unintended consequences for workers. But what of the consequences of having sick folk come to work because they have no choice and make their customers and co-workers sick? Or the consequences of having to train new workers because you've fired the ones who've missed a few days?

Finally (cue cheers from convention crowd!), the Union of Concerned Scientists helps you leave a public comment on the EPA's proposed Tier 3 tailpipe emissions standards. Long story short: you'll be telling the EPA you'd like fewer tailpipe emissions, please, so your lungs don't clog up with smog and soot. Why you're bothering: because the oil corporations don't particularly want to clean up their act -- this, despite the automobile manufacturing corporations' support for cleaning up tailpipe emissions! I suppose a desperate right-winger could always try telling us that this is all part of Obama's nefarious plan to set the oil companies and the car companies against each other! And who knows? That might be right! But if the end result is cleaner air, less asthma, fewer lost work days, and fewer lost school days, then why exactly would I care? (Be quick with the comments, good peoples, because the EPA will stop taking them on this matter after July 1.)

The Council for a Livable World helps you tell Congress to reduce our nuclear weapons budget. Why? We should be reducing our defense spending, generally -- our defense spending has grown by 50% over the last dozen years, which doesn't even include the cost of two wars. And though you may have heard about our "need" to update our nuclear weapons capability, last I looked the planet didn't grow so big that we can't destroy it 200 times over anymore. And the world has changed in other ways: our enemies will more likely attack us with car bombs and weaponized household appliances than with nukes, because they're not out to destroy us, but to make us destroy ourselves. I don't call for an end to nuclear weapons or defense spending but an end to the mania surrounding them, a mania that prevents our elected leaders from cutting them when most Americans would.

Meanwhile, if you've missed previous opportunities to submit public comments about the EPA's proposed tailpipe emission standards, the Sierra Club still helps you do that. These standards, as we've previously discussed, would essentially implement California's tougher emissions standards nationally; most automakers are actually onboard with that plan, as it would mean they'd no longer have to make one version of a car for California and another for the rest of the country. But oil corporations, who stand on the wrong side of history more and more often these days, stand opposed to cleaner tailpipe emissions. I don't know how many flacks they'll get to send public comments screeching JOBZ!!!!, as if making cars cleaner somehow doesn't create jobs for the people who have to figure out how to comply with regulations. But one thing's for sure: we'd better outnumber them.