Thieves in the Temple.

Action: concerning monopolies, racism, pollution, abortion, and bad media.

Long story short: tell your government to fight monopolies, environmental racism, and truck pollution; tell big corporations to stop funding anti-abortion politicians, and tell Verizon to drop OAN from their lineup. Use the email/petition tools in the following paragraphs to communicate your will.

Americans for Financial Reform helps you tell our Department of Justice (or DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (or FTC) to enact the most vigorous rules possible against mergers. Mergers hurt people -- through lost jobs, higher prices, and increased corporate power to do more harm. I bet "higher prices" sure resonates with good Americans right about now, but increased corporate power also means lower wages, dirtier air and water, and more dangerous products. It also means no Medicare drug price negotiation, if you've paid attention to Kyrsten Sinema's big donor gatherings. We can help put a stop to all of that, by telling our government what to do.

The League of Conservation Voters helps you tell our EPA to help communities afflicted most by pollution -- meaning, generally, our poorest communities, which will also be Black or Brown communities most of the time. Right-wingers can sneer at the notion of "racist pollution" all they want, but big polluting corporations situate their most polluting facilities near the poorest neighborhoods for a reason -- namely, that the poorest communities are also the least powerful communities, and thus the least able to stop pollution from overrunning their neighborhood. Thomas Sowell might cringe to hear this, but there's only so much damn bootstrapping folks can do; they also need help keeping polluters out of their grills.

The Union of Concerned Scientists helps you tell our EPA to enact the most vigorous heavy-duty truck emission regulations possible. I said "regulations" just to trigger right-wingers who think regulations are inherently evil! Heavy-duty trucks aren't the most common vehicles on our roads, but they do cause most of the air pollution that wrecks our lungs. And we might as well ask for zero emissions from our trucks; even if we don't get them, we stand a much better chance of getting something better than what we've got. And no, regulations don't kill jobs. Corporate executives kill jobs. You know they'd replace you with a mound of dung if they could get away with it.

People for the American Way helps you tell big corporations to stop funding attacks on abortion rights, mainly through their donations to anti-abortion politicians. They say they do it for economic reasons, which is an excuse almost calculated to offend someone like me more, but their intent doesn't matter when the result is a Supreme Court that's all but declared open season on every right not specifically imagined by a 250-year-old dead man. Don't brook any right-wingers saying it's their money and they can do what they want with it. It's your speech, too, and you can shame them and shun them if you like. Corporations don't have more rights than you.

Daily Kos helps you tell Verizon to drop the notorious One America News Network (or OAN, or OANN) from their lineup. We got AT&T to do it, so now we get other corporations to do it. OAN purveys noxious right-wing propaganda with every breath their on-air personalities draw, but don't settle for throwing up your hands and saying they have the right to free speech. First off, people have First Amendment rights, not corporations. And second, insofar as a corporation has a right to speech, it doesn't have a right to publication of that speech, on a platform, anymore than I have a right to compel Random House to publish my books. We have to think harder about this stuff than we used to.

Around the table: fake news purveyors produce "fact-checks," and other absurdities.

Good news, everyone (no, really!): our Environmental Protection Agency (or EPA) has restored the state of California's ability to set auto emissions standards that are stronger than our federal standards. That means, of course, that the auto industry will very likely just meet California's standards, since California is one of America's largest states; many auto industry insiders didn't think the Trump Administration's revocation of the waiver would have survived federal court challenges anyway, and given the Trump Administration's record in the federal courts, that sure was a winning bet. Sad to see Republicans calling the decades-old waiver "radical," as if that's the only word left in their vocabulary. And when they use that word, of course, they're projecting.

ProPublica reports on "fake fact-checks" spreading on social media and on Russian state TV, which purport to refute faked Ukrainian videos, but which seem to manufacture those videos just to "debunk" them! One analyst calls it a "disinformation false-flag operation" that's "like Russians actually pretending to be Ukrainians spreading disinformation." How do we know? Because the metadata of the uploaded "fact check" videos reveals both the "debunked" video and the "debunking" video have the exact same file name. It's rather like spreading a playground rumor about yourself and just to "refute" it and get unearned sympathy for yourself. In other words, it's drama -- and, sadly, it's drama that makes good folks think there's no such thing as truth anymore. Truth does exist, of course, and we have to fight for it every day.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) notes that big real estate corporations, often backed by bankster money, are buying up houses all over America -- mainly in low-income areas -- and thus are making America's housing shortage even more acute. Before you call that "the churn of civilization," note well that real estate corporations often flip the properties for inflated prices or charge exorbitant rent. Rent control would help the second part of that formulation, and restricting house sales to local buyers would, at least, force bankster-backed real estate corporations to launder their money through those local buyers, and the more complicated a scheme gets, the more likely it'll fail. In the meantime, bigness continues to ruin everything in America.

Sen. Marco Rubio (E-FL) says he did not reveal Ukrainian President Zelenskyy's whereabouts by twittering about the Zoom call they were both on, and that anyone who says he did is just "a partisan seeking clicks." Well, not exactly -- as the post instructs us, even if Mr. Zelenskyy was using a VPN, one could figure out where he was by following the trail left by the sudden surge in uploaded traffic, and I doubt Mr. Rubio, the Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, doesn't know that. You can boil Mr. Rubio's mistake down into just a few words -- "when he's not putting the Ukrainian President at risk with stupid tweets," one Val Demings ad could begin. I'd like to think she's the sort of person who thought of that before I did. Getting the same robotic response from Mr. Rubio about it during a debate sure ain't gonna help him, either.

Speaking of Republicans Senators up for re-election shooting themselves in the foot, Sen. Ron Johnson (E-WI) says Republicans should repeal the Affordable Care Act if they regain power, then walks it back rather unconvincingly. He does remember that Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act pretty much cost them the House in 2018, doesn't he? Yeah, I'm running this attack ad all day if I'm Tom Nelson or Mandela Barnes. Even though Ron Johnson's won two Senate elections already despite being a useful idiot for American corporatists, I question his tactics here -- like the trucker caravan that couldn't compete with Beltway traffic earlier this week, he may be trying to rally his votaries to a war they've already lost. A better tactician would fight, or create, the next war.

Finally, our Senate has passed H.R. 3076, the Postal Service Reform Act, by a substantial, bipartisan margin (79-19), which will end the onerous pre-payment mandate and thus give our Postal Service some breathing room. This is a major legislative achievement, so kudos to you if you called or wrote your Senators and told them to make it happen -- kudos to you, also, if you helped prevent the Toomey amendment (which would have banned postal banking forever) from making it into the final bill, for the bill passed our Senate without amendment. Dig Sen. Rick Scott's sore-loser whining near the end, and recall that his original objection was that it would harm Medicare though four out of five Postal Service retirees already enroll in Medicare.

Around the table: right-wingers want to "defund the police," and other truths.

When Matt Stoller talks about big tech corporations trying to "defund the police," he means that big tech corporations donate to the politicians who'll cut off funding for our Federal Trade Commission (or FTC), who enforce antitrust law and who are more hostile to monopolies than at any time in at least 40 years. Strange that every time Republicans try to cut funding for our IRS or for Medicare's fraud investigators, they don't call it "defunding the police," though that's really what it is. But just try to criticize a cop for killing a Black man who was brandishing a cellphone, and these very same people will scream their lungs out at you like their mamas never taught them any manners. I've said it before and I'll say it again: if you yammer on about "urban crime" but you never mention corporate crime, I won't listen to you.

Good news, everyone: Ecuador's Constitutional Court has ruled that indigenous populations have the right to veto any drilling or mining projects on their land. When Marco Rubio hears about this, I'm sure he'll yammer on about trial lawyers, even though getting a small community's permission before drilling for oil or gas near their homes would strike most reasonable thinkers as the conservative thing to do. Giving the most autonomy to the most local forms of government is still conservative, right? Or has the word been tortured until the only thing it says is more money for rich people?

Matthew Jordan and Sydney Forde at The Conversation tell us that "Canadian Trucker Protests Show How the Loudest Voices in the Room Distort Democracy." I've said truckers have the right to close off roads even though they're a bunch of whiny brats, but yeah, if I were living in Ottawa right now, I'd probably be disgusted with all the horn-blowing. Well, as they say, the emptiest wagon makes the loudest noise. You know, just like in campaign finance!

If you've been thinking that the successful recall of three San Francisco school board members sends yet another signal of a Republican wave in 2022, don't think that, and not necessarily because their replacements will be appointed by a Democratic Mayor anyway. Folks much closer to the controversy inform us that the main issue voters had with the school board was its rampant incompetence -- they cared more about renaming Abraham Lincoln High School than, you know, figuring out how to get kids educated in a pandemic. I mean, getting Confederate names off schools is fine. But Abraham Lincoln was a stone-cold slavery fighter! No, really -- look past his carefully-calculated public pronouncements and look at his personal letters, in which he can't STFU about how much he hates slavery.

Some observers, noting that Republican Senators on the Finance Committee boycotted a meeting about a particular Fed nominee, wonder if they'll do the same to the eventual Supreme Court nominee. Some of them are already talking like she won't be qualified just because she'll be Black and female, though plenty of Black women are qualified enough to serve on our Court. And thus the same Senators who rushed the Kavanaugh and Barrett nominations will suddenly become apostles of patience and prudence if their stupidest questions aren't answered to their liking. And Joe Manchin will pretend not to notice Republicans inflicting yet another injury to his beloved "bipartisanship," and Kyrsten Sinema will just blame all liberals everywhere for not "getting to yes" with the party that only says yes when they get everything and you get nothing.

Finally, some more good news! our Environmental Protection Agency (or EPA) will reinstate California's authority to set stricter emissions standards than our federal government. This means, of course, that automotive corporations will build their cars to stricter standards, because California has a lot of people in it, you know, but they did it before Donald Trump, so they can do it again after Donald Trump. We really don't ask that much of our "big," "bold" "entrepreneurs."

Action: concerning January 6, the Estate Tax, unemployment, pollution, and vote suppression.

Long story short: tell Democrats to hold January 6 hearings without Republican help or support, tell your Congressfolk to pass the For the 99.5% Act, tell states to stop using facial recognition software in unemployment applications, tell our EPA to roll back the Trump-era rule forbidding states from setting stricter car emissions standards, and tell Pepsi to stop funneling money to vote suppressors. 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 Congressfolk's phone numbers (where applicable), or use the email/petition tools in the following paragraphs. Good hunting, and have a happy weekend!

Consumers United for Fairness helps you tell Democrats to go ahead and hold hearings on the January 6 attempted coup without Republicans. 35 Republican House Reps actually voted for the independent commission legislation, but if we don't get 10 Republican votes in the Senate for it (hey, go ahead and call them, what could it hurt?), then Democrats should just move ahead. Are they afraid of being called "partisan" for it? Then they should all lose their next elections! Because they don't have the courage to do the job! Do the right thing, then worry about Republican hurt fee-fees. Bunch of damn brats, Republicans are. And it's about time Democrats stopped acting afraid of them. (I'm aware that the word "acting" implies this might all be one big drama. The only way to counter that is to be real with your Reps and Senators.)

Roots Action helps you tell your Congressfolk to pass H.R. 2576/S. 994, the For the 99.5 Percent Act. What would the For the 99.5% Act do? It would institute five Estate Tax brackets, ranging from 39% at the low end ($750,000 to $3.5 million) to 65% at the high end (over $1 billion). We all just witnessed billionaire wealth increase over $1 trillion during this pandemic, so it ain't like they ain't got the money. And one more time: this bill will kill exactly zero family farms! Too many good liberals still let this zombie lie live in their head, but even the organizations plugging this lie can't find a single example of a family farm lost to the Estate Tax! Next time you're in a room with 200 people, please understand that the For the 99.5% Act would only ever tax approximately one of them.

Fight for the Future helps you tell states to stop using facial recognition software on good Americans trying to file for unemployment. Because facial recognition sucks! It can't tell Black folks apart any better than your Trumphole uncle can! And just as higher walls tend to be confounded by taller ladders, some scam artists have, no joke, resorted to 3D-printed face masks in order to confound the software, meaning the supposed fraud prevention measure has actually become a fraud creation measure. And, you know, submitting to software that makes everything worse also makes your wait for unemployment benefits longer! Just at the moment you really can't have any of that! So go ahead and deploy the winning argument against the officials trying to hurt you.

The Environmental Defense Fund helps you tell our Environmental Protection Agency (or EPA) to reverse the Trump Administration's rule preventing states from setting stricter auto emissions standards than our federal government does. If you're the kind of person who says f'ing California and their f'ing emissions standards making me work harder, then you're not the kind of person who says f'ing car manufacturers and their f'ing inefficient cars making me pay more for f'ing gas, and not just because the latter describes a real problem real Americans face. Seriously, we have to stop putting corporate executive whining on the same level as actual problems. No one says they don't have a right to complain, but they also don't have a "right" to get their way whenever they complain. No amount of money can buy you a right.

Finally, Daily Kos helps you tell PepsiCo to stop donating to organizations and candidates who help suppress votes. Corporations can talk all they want about how "the right to vote is a cornerstone of American democracy," as a Pepsi spokeshack has said, but actually putting your money where your mouth is? That's another thing entirely. Pepsi gave half a mil to the reactionary U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 2020, and said Chamber is leading the charge against H.R. 1, the For the People Act, a bill some two-thirds of Americans actually support in numerous polls. Their spokeshacks will say they only give to the Chamber for economic reasons, which is to laugh -- not just because it's actually kind of insulting to think we'll like the reactionary Chamber's economic agenda, but because the Chamber can spend its donations how it likes, and Pepsi knows that. So enough stupid crap from corporations.

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.