Thieves in the Temple.

Action: bad Trump nominees, bad Congressional bills, and child marriage in Bangladesh.

Again, we're going to try to get ahead of the curve on votes on Trump nominees before they receive their final votes in the Senate; hence I advise you to use the tools in the upper left-hand corner of this page and call your Senators to oppose the nomination of Rex Tillerson to Secretary of State, Betsy DeVos to Education Secretary, and Scott Pruitt to EPA Administrator. You can tell your Senators to oppose Mr. Tillerson because of his corporation's notorious human rights record abroad (as this article described). You can tell your Senators to oppose Ms. DeVos not merely because of her lifelong zeal to privatize public education -- a goal, as we mentioned a few days ago, predicated on entirely false assumptions -- but because of her trouble keeping her hands clean ethically, a problem that dogs most folks who support privatizing public schools and give only lip service to holding those private schools accountable. And you can tell your Senators you oppose Mr. Pruitt because you have no faith he'll keep our air and water clean, particularly when you examine his record as Oklahoma's Attorney General, soft-pedaling law enforcement when it might have affected his big donors. It's really like Donald Trump is trying to find the worst person to do every Executive branch job, but we don't have to take it just because he got 46% of the vote.

Meanwhile, Congress wants to roll back the Bureau of Land Management's rules limiting methane emissions on public lands. Why? Because this Congress apparently doesn't care if methane emissions (which pack a much bigger climate-change punch than coal emissions, as you know) befoul the air, as long as some big donor is making lots of unearned money digging into our land. No, it's really that simple. Of course even Donald Trump says we need some environmental regulation -- just not any of the environmental regulation we've got, or any we might want. You'd think, though, as nominal conservatives, that the Republicans running Congress would be aghast at the $330 million that methane leaks (and intentional methane ventilation!) costs the taxpayer in royalties every year. (If not for leaks and venting, corporations could sell the gas they're losing, and thus we could collect royalties on it.) But they're not aghast, so you can go ahead and conclude that Republicans are not, in fact, conservative -- reactionary, corporatist, evil, anything but conservative. So the Environmental Defense Fund helps you tell your House Rep to oppose any effort to gut methane emissions rule that protect our air and protect our public lands.

In other news, the Project on Government Oversight helps you call your Reps and Senators to tell them to vote against repealing the Cardin-Lugar Provision of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. What does Cardin-Lugar do? It forces certain fossil fuel and mining corporations to disclose to the public the taxes and royalties they pay to our federal government, in exchange for the privilege of extracting natural resources from American lands -- including our public lands. And why would anyone want to repeal that provision? Because SOCIALISM COMMUNISM NAZISM KENYAN ANTI-COLONIALISM!!!! Gosh, I haven't done that in a while. Seriously, the only reason to repeal this reporting provision is to hide, from the public -- who are not only the true owners of public lands, but the true owners of our government -- what they're paying the public for the privilege of pulling resources out of the ground. They'll say forcing such disclosure "kills jobs" -- try figuring that one out! -- but they say everything people want that's good for them "kills jobs." And I'm tired of them getting all the say around here.

Finally, the government of Bangladesh is contemplating a bill that could end child marriage there -- which would be a big deal, since Bangladesh has, unfortunately, one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world. But they're also contemplating a clause that could force girls to marry their rapists! Why? Well, according to Bangladesh's Prime Minister, girls in rural areas don't have any better options to preserve their "honor" than to marry the men who force themselves upon them -- which won't convince you if you believe, as I do, that a government's job is to encourage hope, not stamp it out. And we protect children from sexual relations with adults for a reason, after all -- adults can overpower children, both physically and psychologically, hence no consent to sexual relations (which must happen between equals) is possible. Avaaz helps you tell the government of Bangladesh to pass a strong, anti-child marriage law without "special circumstance" loopholes that would make a mockery of their efforts.

Around the table: what "extreme vetting" is actually like, and other tales.

Oops: Steve Mnuchin tells Sen. Casey (D-PA) that OneWest didn't indulge in the notorious and illegal "robo-signing" practice while he was there, and guess what? Of course it did. And then he had the cojones to complain that "filling out these government forms is quite complicated"! Nothing's that complicated if you're not evil, Mr. Mnuchin.

President Trump signs another Executive Order requiring agencies to slash two regulations every time they introduce a new one. OMB leeway to waive the requirement or not, I'm pretty sure he can't really do this, either, since the Executive's authority to regulate comes from Congress, and Congress orders the Executive branch to issue regulations to meet specific legislative aims. But if his Executive agencies obey him, which they will, it's still going to be a mess.

Remember that "mass resignation" at the State Department last week? Turns out it was less a "mass resignation" and more a purge. Add this to the list of accusations you can hurl (skips intelligence briefings, purges ambassadors, signed Executive Orders that attacked refugees and immigrants who don't terrorize Americans, struts around like he's got church bells for balls) against Donald Trump when he lets terrorists attack us.

Mostafa Housson writes about the "extreme vetting" he went through when he came to America as a Syrian refugee earlier this decade. He writes 25 paragraphs describing multiple interviews over 15 months, plus "enhanced" DHS review of Syrian refugees and an eight-hour physical. But please, right-wingers, tell us what we could be doing differently. Oh, wait -- you don't care about doing things differently; you only care about doing nothing at all. Civilization is so hard, after all.

Trump spokeshack Sean Spicer says Mr. Trump's Executive Orders will prevent terror attacks like the San Bernardino shooting, but the San Bernardino shooters were not from any of the countries listed in Mr. Trump's orders. I could also point out that it won't prevent domestic terrorists like the Planned Parenthood bomber, but would that be piling on? (The answer to that question, by the way, is always no.)

California state Senator calls upon the White House to release Melania Trump's immigration papers. I mention this only to point out the precise thing we, as good Americans resisting evil, should be spending precisely zero time wringing our hands about. They're already throwing so much crap at us that we can't grab at every perceived hypocrisy and wrestle it to the ground, so let's all stay focused.

Action: largely action alerts about corruption, good government, and health care.

Given that the Senate would rather rush through a vote on unpopular Trump cabinet nominees than give the American people a chance to weigh in, I'm going to advise that you go on offense, and call your Senators (using the tools in the upper left-hand corner of this page, of course) to oppose the nominations of Jeff Sessions as Attorney General and Steve Mnuchin as Treasury Secretary. You can oppose Mr. Sessions because you're not convinced he'll protect either civil rights laws or the right of folks not to get shot to death by police before they've even been accused of a crime, and you can oppose Mr. Mnuchin not merely because he seemed to have a hard-on for foreclosing upon homeowners while running OneWest (with the aid of corporate welfare, naturally!), but because he "omitted" more than $100 million in personal assets in his December disclosures to the Senate. I was about to say you and I should have $100 million we can just forget about!, but if we did, we might also be hopelessly corrupt. Love of money does that, after all.

Speaking of going on offense, Rep. Conyers (D-MI) has reintroduced H.R. 676, the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, and you can call your Reps and Senators and urge them to support it. H.R. 676 would, of course, expand Medicare to include all Americans and thus create a single-payer health care system -- you know, like most other civilized nations have. People who oppose it like to say TEH CREEPING SOSHULIZM!!! and TEH TAXEZ WILL GOEZ UPZ!!!!!, but it's not "creeping socialism" so much as "creeping effective health insurance," one that would make controversies over uninsured folks and pre-existing conditions and out-of-network costs a thing of the past. And it wouldn't "increase taxes, either -- it would merely take the money you and your employer are already paying for your health insurance and call it a payroll tax. And it would reduce what you and your employer are paying, too -- after all, England and France famously pay less than half in health care expenses per capita what Americans pay. Why can't we have nice things, too? Merely because Our Glorious Elites don't want us to have them?

In other news, you've no doubt heard multitudinous reports that President Trump plans to slash trillions of dollars in government spending that actually helps people and actually exemplifies our values as a civilization -- you know, versus the kind of spending that merely funnels hard-earned taxpayer dollars to some government official's cronies, which is exactly the kind of Big Gummint Donald Trump seems to like. Per media reports, Mr. Trump would privatize the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, zero out funding for the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, eliminate Violence Against Women grants (because what else does a "pussy-grabber" do?), cut funding for renewable energy research, civil rights enforcement, and community policing -- and that's before we get to all the corporate welfare handouts, privatizing Medicare, cutting Social Security, and rolling back regulations on banksters. Is this what happens when 46% of the electorate elect a President? Not when 100% of Americans get to have their say about anything they want, at any time, regardless of whether or not Steve Bannon tells you to "shut up" or Trump votaries beg you to "give him a chance." Hence CREDO helps you oppose Trump's draconian, anti-American budget cuts.

Finally, Mr. Trump has lately signed an Executive Order that would allow work on the Dakota Access Pipeline to proceed more easily -- but his own investments in the pipeline have been of some interest in media reports. Mr. Trump held shares in Energy Transfer Partners and Phillips 66, two corporations involved in the pipeline's construction; a Trump spokeshack has announced that Mr. Trump has since divested in Energy Transfer, but we've heard nothing about his investment in Phillips 66. Hence MoveOn helps you tell Congress to require that the President prove he's divested from Phillips 66. I know plenty of reasonable-sounding but unscrupulous right-wingers are champing at the bit to reply that every President has cronies, and that since Mr. Trump's been more successful at business than all the other Presidents before him, his cronies will be more obvious. That objection would easily earn two counter-objections: 1) that we have an obvious interest in ensuring the President does not make decisions that directly benefit him, and 2) the fact that "every President has cronies" does not make it right. That's before we get to the meaning of "success" in the context of Donald Trump, which we could argue at least two ways.

Around the table: the harder they come.

Protests against President Trump's anti-immigration orders erupt at airports after our government detains legal U.S. residents holding green cards at several of these airports. NPR's report counts about a dozen protests nationwide, including eight at big-city airports, and counts protestor numbers in the "thousands," meaning, presumably, less than 20,000 (or they'd have said "tens of thousands"), but that's quite impressive for short notice, and the protests appear to have continued after the NPR report went up. And later, two federal judges struck down parts of the Trump orders, freeing some (but not all) of the detainees. Just remember that failure in this matter may be what Mr. Trump wants, so that if terrorists inflict a massive attack, he can institute far more draconian Orders later on. Still, speaking out is always the best course, so if you're looking for an airport protest near you, this page can help you find one.

Scott Shane at the New York Times finds no shortage of researchers who can tell you exactly why Mr. Trump's Executive Orders won't reduce terrorism. Key finding: very, very few folks who've perpetrated terrorist attacks against America came from the seven countries on Mr. Trump's little Enemies List -- but more have come from four countries that he left off. I'm not sure we should have had to wait until paragraph 6 to learn that Mr. Trump has business interests in all four of these countries. It wouldn't be too much to ask, would it, that the next four years make good Americans profoundly tired of the corruption that has enabled Donald Trump's ascension?

It gets better: American border agents are apparently trying to figure out folks' political views via their Facebook pages before allowing them into the country. This may not be the first time our border agents have done this, but how on Earth would that fact make what they're doing now right? I thought we Americans had faith in our form of government, and in our ability to assimilate anyone, from anywhere on Earth. From this we must conclude that the loudest opponents of immigration must also have the least faith in our country, though (like many truths) Our Glorious Elites tell us the opposite.

Ho hum, Factcheck analyzes Donald Trump's claim that we could have stopped ISIS if we'd just taken all of Iraq's oil, and finds it wanting. Of course we should point out that ISIS has been depending on Syria's oil far more than on Iraq's (less than 40% of its revenue came from Iraqi oil, for a period of perhaps six months in late 2008 and early 2009), and we should also point out that ISIS grew out of Tha Bush Mobb's little adventure in Iraq, but seriously, how is it just OK to take some other country's natural resource? How is it just another policy option? And how is it that so few members of our "liberal" media will even raise the quite reasonable objection that stealing another country's resources just sets you up for further trouble down the road?

Finally, Sheila Bapat at TruthOut sounds a hopeful note in the fight for better pay and working conditions for domestic workers. President Trump no doubt stands at the ready to smack down the Obama Administration's attempts to make life better for these folks -- which included getting overtime protections for domestic workers for the first time -- but Ms. Bapat reminds us that "(d)omestic worker activists have demonstrated their power in local and state-level coalition building," and "their core work lies in fostering values and building dialogue that often transcends party lines." Imagine that -- actual bipartisanship, organized around actual folks' needs, and not Our Glorious Elites' lies about both sides happening to want what Our Glorious Elites want.

Around the table: student loans, hiring freezes, Executive Orders, legislative agendas, Holocaust statements, and online privacy.

The Center for Media and Democracy finds that Betsy DeVos does have some education experience after all -- she's invested in a student loan debt-collection agency that, of course, has lately failed to secure a government contract, possibly because of numerous consumer complaints against it. So, yeah, we'd want someone invested in that in charge of regulating that! It's also good to be reminded, though, that "a largely bipartisan consensus around 'education reform'" has enabled Betsy DeVos's ascension to begin with, and that our "liberal" media still enable this "bipartisan consensus," one built on the three-decade-plus-old lie that public schools are failing us.

Richard Eskow asks "Who'll Get Shafted" by President Trump's federal worker hiring freeze, and finds, unsurprisingly, that mostly regular folks will get the shaft. Social Security recipients will get shafted by not having enough workers to help them through their issues, workers will get hurt by having fewer OSHA inspectors, and veterans will get hurt by hiring freezes at the Veterans Administration (strangely not part of Mr. Trump's big military exemption) -- but small businesses will also be hurt by the stagnating demand the hiring freeze will bring about, and when the EPA doesn't have the people to keep air and water clean, everyone will be hurt. (Yes, there's also a "public safety" exemption to the freeze, but I doubt a Trump EPA Administrator would ever pressure Mr. Big about it.)

Speaking of Mr. Big, a lot of Mr. Trump's notorious Executive Orders may "run aground," simply because he didn't consult any of the agencies that would be affected by them. That raises the possibility that these Orders would conflict with existing, settled law. But, hey, nobody but George W. Bush is better at profiting off failure than Donald Trump! If his immigration-related Executive Orders, for example, wind up dying a quick death at the hands of some federal appeals court, and then terrorists launch a 9.11-sized attack on American soil, Donald Trump can blame all those "liberal" federal judges (most of whom were appointed by Republicans, but never mind). C'mon, if I could figure that out, I'm sure Mr. Trump's braintrust has already mooted it.

But in case you thought Donald Trump wasn't the only Republicans planning to wreak havoc wherever he can, Paul Ryan's House also has an, er, ambitious agenda, to unfold over 200 days, apparently, because Donald Trump really likes it when you try to go one bigger on him. He'd approve of most-if-not-all of this agenda -- Obamacare repeal, tax cuts for the rich and corporations, strangling good regulations in their cribs, a corporate welfare infrastructure program -- even if most of the American people wouldn't, which is the more pertinent question, really. Why does Paul Ryan want more methane in our air, anyway?

If George W. Bush had simply forgotten to mention Jews during his Holocaust Remembrance Day statement, as Mr. Trump did on Friday, you might have chalked it up to stupidity, though Mr. Bush wasn't stupid, and anyway Mr. Bush was far too attentive to folks' feelings to have ever have made that mistake. Not too many folks think of Donald Trump as stupid, of course -- they're more likely to think of him as mean, which isn't a good look for a President, and they're also more likely to think of him as a racist, given his multitudinous you-call-it-politically-incorrect-I-call-it-being-an-asshole statements about various minorities. Also, too, Steve Bannon probably wrote that statement, and Steve Bannon's not exactly Nobel Peace Prize-winning material.

Finally, Julia Angwin at ProPublica discusses "How to Protect Your Digital Privacy in the Era of Public Shaming." I'm a bit put off by the title, merely because I don't think shaming people who injure our communities is a bad thing, but what is a bad thing is people throwing bricks through your window because you criticized the President. That isn't shaming; that's vandalism. Anyway, make your passwords longer, update your software, use encryption, opt out of data brokers, get rid of ancient data, and other things. (Also, Ms. Angwin provides a link to this site advising you on surviving online harassment, which might be in your future if you're planning to speak out against this evil Administration; there's plenty of good advice there, too.)

Action: internet freedom, and public schools.

Donald Trump has selected FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai to succeed Tom Wheeler as Chairman of the FCC. If you know Mr. Trump's attitude toward net neutrality (he hates it, because it's good), you already know that Mr. Pai has already promised the big telecom corporations that he's going to get rid of it first chance he gets. As outgoing Chairman Wheeler reminds us, the only people in America who want to get rid of net neutrality -- the principle that forces corporations to treat all network traffic neutrally, and thus allows you, not some corporation, to go where you want to go on the internet -- are the big telecom CEOs and the politicians who suck up to them. The good news? The only people who wanted the Trans-Pacific "Partnership" were big corporate CEOs and the politicians who sucked up to them, and we killed that (Donald Trump takes all the credit, but we deserve it). And good Americans across the political spectrum support net neutrality; perhaps now that Mr. Obama's out of office, certain right-wingers (I'm looking at you, Ralph Reed) will remember that. Hence Free Press helps you call Mr. Pai and tell him to stop trying to kill net neutrality.

Meanwhile, I did not know that this week was "National School Choice Week" on the right, but apparently it is, and of course school "choice" -- a.k.a., "stealing taxpayer money to spend on bad private schools so public schools can be worse off" -- has been a hot item in the news lately, with that inveterate school privatizer Betsy DeVos up for Education Secretary in the Trump Administration. Mr. Trump, of course, is himself a votary of diverting public money to private schools (just in time for many mainstream Democrats to start having their doubts, of course!), even though we know that states and municipalities typically funnel your hard-earned taxpayer money toward schools run by their cronies and then "forget" to perform oversight on these schools like they're supposed to do. Of course, "voucher" programs have other problems, too -- like that they don't guarantee admission to private schools or even guarantee parents will be able to afford the entire tuition payment at private schools. Hence Americans United for the Separation of Church and State helps you tell your government to oppose public school privatization at every turn.

Around the table: Trump follies and Aetna lies.

President Trump prepares Executive Order that would drastically restrict refugee admissions and deny visas to folks coming from "high-risk" countries" -- again, with no AMURIKAN CAESAR pushback from the right-wingers who whined repeatedly about Mr. Obama's executive orders. The Trump Administration is mulling seven different countries for their "high-risk" lists, and they just so happen to be Muslim-majority countries; perhaps Mr. Pence will remind Mr. Trump that Mr. Bush didn't go that far in his attempt to curb Muslim immigration, and then maybe they'll throw in a country Mr. Trump doesn't like. Sweden, perhaps?

Trump Administration will also require political appointees to review all EPA data and studies before the public can see them. It should be like a reflex, by now, to retort what does the Trump Administration have to hide? But I expect a lawsuit over this, since the EPA already has a Scientific Integrity Policy (still on the EPA's website at this writing, how did Steve Bannon miss that?), and it's also entirely possible Mr. Trump backs down before then (saying that he only intended that policy to be in effect until the transition was complete, or some such rubbish).

Uh oh: senior Trump Administration officials were using a private email server at the RNC until Wednesday -- and it was the same RNC server that somehow "lost" 22 million emails. These officials apparently stopped using that server after Newsweek originally published this story, but they still have to copy any emails they used at RNC addresses to the White House's email system, or they'll have committed a crime. Who wants to take a guess at how much the President who's still using an unsecured Android cell phone will enforce the law here?

Speaking of something-they-do-that-we'd-never-do-except-we-do, a Florida newspaper discovers that Trump senior advisor/racist Steve Bannon is registered to vote in both New York and Florida. This, after the President suggested that "those registered to vote in two states" deprived him of that 20 bajillion vote popular vote victory (or, indeed, any popular vote victory) he's sure he deserves! What Mr. Trump pretends not to understand, of course, is that most folks who move from one state to another stay on two voter rolls until they don't vote in a few elections in a row. And if not for the "Interstate Crosscheck" database (which, as you know, lists voters with similar names across states and is a tool for unscrupulous state government officials to throw people off the rolls on "suspicion" of fraud), we'd probably all be complaining about Hillary Clinton's Presidency right now.

Finally, because there's just no good news today, a federal judge has determined (from Aetna's own paperwork, despite their best efforts!) that Aetna didn't pull out of the Obamacare exchanges because it was "losing money" but because it wanted to retaliate against our government for not giving it the go-ahead to buy Humana. Paul Ryan has been saying for a while now that Aetna's "losses" proved that Obamacare wasn't working; will he now be swift enough to suggest that Aetna's attempted hostage-taking also proves that Obamacare wasn't working? I kid, of course -- the "liberal" media let him get away with any ridiculous uttering, out of a strange conviction that he's "smart" or "wonky," so he won't even have to try that hard.

Action: clean water, and fair trade.

As you know, President Trump signed Executive Orders moving forward both the Keystone XL pipeline and the Dakota Access pipeline, despite their massive unpopularity and the danger they present to clean water (these two items, of course, being intimately related). Hence Amnesty International helps you tell Mr. Trump to withdraw his order and guarantee the right to peaceful protest and redress of grievances in re Standing Rock, and the Sierra Club helps you tell Mr. Trump to reverse orders on both Dakota Access and Keystone, and put people, clean water, and renewable energy first. He won't listen, but at least he'll be on record as having ignored the will of the people. Many issues are at stake here -- clean water, pipeline safety, wildlife habitats, religious freedom -- but these pipelines also won't get done in a day: the Keystone Order, for example, restarts the process, giving the State Department 60 days to review the matter. We know what they'll say, but it ain't over.

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump has formally withdrawn the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific "Partnership" negotiations; I did wonder how he was going to flip-flop on this matter, but I'm glad he didn't. Still, as with the pipeline troubles above, the Executive Order isn't the end of it -- Mr. Trump may well negotiate (or renegotiate) trade deals that are even worse than the multitudinous "free" trade deals that have plagued our nation over the years. So the Sierra Club helps you tell your Congressfolk to negotiate trade deals that put people above polluters. The road to hell is paved with the stories of multinational corporations who spew filth into the people's air and water -- and then sue their governments for even having clean air and clean water laws in the first place, expecting a tribute (or a bailout, take your pick) for the trouble they caused! Mr. Trump's inclinations don't give me hope, but then he doesn't get all the say around here.

Around the table: a potential David to battle campaign-finance Goliath, and other stories.

James Marc Leas at TruthOut may have found a way to punch a hole in the Citizens United decision -- and it derives from another Supreme Court decision authored by the late Antonin Scalia. In Nevada Ethics Commission v. Carrigan (2011), "the Court upheld a portion of Nevada's Ethics in Government Law that prohibits an elected official from voting or taking any other official action when faced with a real or apparent conflict of interest" -- by arguing, quite rightly, that a legislators' vote is not "free speech," but an "official act" taken "as trustee for his constituents, not as a prerogative of personal power." It'd thus be possible for state and local governments, at least, to simply ban legislators from voting on matters concerning their campaign donors -- which would make campaign donations rather poisonous. If we could do this at the federal level, that'd be even better! But doing it at local levels would be a good start.

Amid the flurry of appalling Executive Orders Mr. Trump has issued lately (no worries from the right about this AMURKIAN CAESAR!!!!, apparently!) is this one: he has imposed a freeze on EPA contracts and grants. The EPA contracts a lot of work out to third-party entities, and often the amount they spend on these contracts and grants exceeds their actual budget. I'm not thrilled that the EPA contracts out so much work, but then I'm pretty sure Mr. Trump isn't really very upset about that; he's just upset the EPA exists at all, and keeps his cronies from making all the money.

You may have heard that "not one arrest" resulted from the Women's March, but that sure wasn't true the day before, as Washington, D.C. police not only made mass arrests of over 200 folks but slapped all of them with felony rioting charges. I mean, getting arrested at a protest is hardly new, and in fact has considerable utility, but getting rioting charges is fairly unprecedented. Also fairly unprecedented: these folks not only can't get their cameras and cell phones back, they can't get cell phone chargers back. They can't even get gloves back, which suggests someone in the D.C. police department has a fetish.

Speaking of the Women's March, here are two analyses thereof from Counterpunch: Anthony DiMaggio finds the diversity and sheer size of the March to be strengths and the lack of economic and anti-imperialist critiques to be weaknesses (though he also says most of the protestors he encountered were significantly to the left of Hillary Clinton) while Ted Rall cites the absence of concrete demands made by the marchers as evidence that it was a "Dismal Failure" even as it was a "Hopeful Sign." Still, if these marches are going to be about Mr. Trump, they're ultimately going to fail, because Mr. Trump is, ultimately, just a wedge between us and our goals, just as he intends. It's probably why we still hear, from the "liberal" media no less, stories like Mr. Trump's supposed rage at the size of the crowds protesting him. I mean, if it's true, what a big baby he is. But we can't talk about him all the time.

Finally, BoingBoing presents former Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) advising you on "How to Raise Hell for Members of Congress." The video runs a mere one minute, 44 seconds, but I'll summarize it for you anyway: phone calls are good, emails and letters are "interesting," but asking pointed questions about how your Congressperson voted on a particular matter in a public setting (which could be a townhall meeting or any other event) is the best way to do it. Like the "Indivisible" group's lengthy analysis that so many folks have read on Google docs and elsewhere, Mr. Israel was clearly moved by how well the Tea Party hijacked the conversation back in 2010, and I suppose their energy and commitment was impressive, even if their arguments were rock-stupid. Still, food for thought -- and action.

Action: civil rights, ANWR drilling, and food labeling.

Mr. Trump's nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions as Attorney General is bad enough, and his widely-reported zeal for slashing the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division is even worse, but his nomination of John Gore to head up the Civil Rights Decision also demands our opposition. Why so? Because Mr. Gore has had his name on some of the most horrible right-wing anti-civil rights initiatives of the past few years -- he's defended Republican redistricting from New York to Florida, defended Florida Gov. Scott's racist voter purge of 2012, and even defended North Carolina's notorious "bathroom bill" in court. My guess is that the Trump team will say this guy really understands civil rights!, but understanding how to subvert civil rights laws is nothing to brag about. The next few years are going to be very, very hard, but we don't have to take that lying down. Hence People for the American Way helps you tell your Senators to oppose the Gore nomination

Meanwhile, with the ascension of Mr. Trump to the Presidency, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (or ANWR) has become a thing again, and though Sen. Stevens is no longer with us to wear his Incredible Hulk tie to ANWR votes, Alaska's current Senatorial delegation (Sens. Murkowski and Sullivan) are still anxious to open up the area to oil drilling, though estimates of oil reserves in ANWR have never been all that impressive, and though drilling there would injure the wildlife (it is a wildlife refuge, after all!) and the native Americans who live there. But why should Mr. Trump care, when there's unearned money to be squeezed from somewhere? Make no mistake, ANWR drilling is only a thing because some CEO will make money from it. And that's before we get to the problem of where the polar bears are going to live, now that climate change has decimated their more northerly habitats. The Alaska Wilderness League helps you tell your Senators to vote against any bill that would open up ANWR to drilling.

Finally, the FDA currently focuses on salt and fat when evaluating "healthy" labels on food, but while salt and fat are important, we also know that other factors figure into whether or not we can call a food "healthy" -- like added sugar content, use of chemical pesticides, antibiotic abuse, and using "whole" ingredients more than highly-processed ones. Using genetically-modified organisms shouldn't earn a food a "healthy" label, either, if for no other reason than that GMOs usually indicate the overuse of pesticides. I can already hear folks say that if you believe a "healthy" label on a food product, you're a fool. But why should it be that way? Cynicism sure does make you feel better for a moment or two, but it's no way to change the world. Hence the Sierra Club helps you tell the FDA to make sure "healthy" food labels tell you a lot more about that food than they currently do.

Around the table: the Trump infrastructure plan as "developer welfare," and other hard lessons.

Michael Hudson aptly describes "Trump's Infrastructure Plan" as "Developer Welfare." He describes how the Wall Street-financed construction of the 2nd Avenue line in New York City benefits the landlords along the line -- who are already raising rents on the people who were supposed to benefit from the line! And of course the MTA financed 2nd Avenue by borrowing from banksters, and now will be paying banksters interest in perpetuity. And that's the kind of "infrastructure" you'll see from Mr. Trump -- infrastructure that doesn't actually help ordinary Americans, but helps banksters and landlords, who seem to be his real constituency.

Spencer Woodman at The Intercept now finds eight U.S. states contemplating laws criminalizing peaceful protest in some way. What do they have to be afraid of? Well, North Dakota is mulling whether to make it OK to run over a protestor "accidentally," and supporters of that initiative actually have the cojones to tell you that the momentarily-successful Standing Rock protests make such legislation necessary! You know what else might make Standing Rock-style protests go away? Committing to renewable energy sources like solar and wind. Of course, big fossil fuel corporations think there's no money in that, but they're wrong.

Fox News poll shows the Affordable Care Act is actually more popular than Donald Trump right now. And finding that 50% approvals for the ACA is fairly unprecedented -- during that interminable debate over the matter in 2009 and 2010, you couldn't find even 40% approval for the thing (though, as the "liberal" media usually ignored, a lot of folks, and not all of them liberals, disapproved of it because it wasn't single-payer). Could it be that folks like something better as soon as they fear they're going to lose it? Or that Republicans have failed so badly at convincing people they can do better? It's probably both.

Lost in the brouhaha over "grizzly bears" at Betsy DeVos's last confirmation hearing was her apparent conviction that disabled students shouldn't get equal access to public education under the law, which conviction not only runs afoul of over 40-year-old federal law, but also of basic human decency. Privatize the whole system, as Mr. DeVos is eager to do, and you're likely to have a crapload of corrupt charter schools taking public money to break public laws. Anyone else think we ought to just commit to making our public services be the best they can be, instead of giving in to the promises of snake oil salesfolk?

Surprise, surprise, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama has found the state guilty of "unconstitutional racial gerrymandering" in 12 state legislature districts (three Senate, nine House). Alabama will have to redraw those 12 districts before 2018, if they don't appeal, which they may do, even though the plaintiffs alleged that 36 districts were unconstitutional racial gerrymanders. Still, it's something that the state drew a dozen districts so badly that even Judge William Pryor (lately mooted as Mr. Trump's next choice for the U.S. Supreme Court) wasn't willing to explain them away.

Finally, San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich lights into President Trump in a radio rant. You may not have known the five-time NBA champion head coach was also a champion of civilization, but he is, declaring that "respect has to be earned," that "if our children would've said (what Mr. Trump said when he mocked a disabled reporter)" he'd have "grounded" them, that "the people around (Mr. Trump)...have the cynical approach and disingenuous attitude to really defend him and try to make it look like he didn't say what he said," and that Mr. Trump can't reach out to people he's hurt or offended because "bullies don't do that." And I haven't heard this anywhere else: "Instead of honoring the 117 people behind him (who died in the line of duty) where he was speaking (at the CIA offices), he talked about the size of the (inauguration) crowd." So what's Mr. Trump gonna do? Call Pop a loser?

Action: the Holman Rule, and public water.

Earlier this month, the House of Representatives revived the Holman rule, which allows individual House members to cut a specific federal worker's salary to $1 annually. Why, there's just no chance a House Rep could use that tool in either a petty vendetta against a particular federal employee -- or to silence a particular federal employee who doesn't adhere to far right-wing ideology! Seriously, it's not hard to imagine a House member slashing the salary of EPA workers who actually try to protect our clean air and clean water under an Administrator Pruitt, or SEC workers who actually try to investigate the corruption of some bankster Friend of Trump, or CFPB workers who try to protect consumers from financial predators under whichever financial predator Mr. Trump appoints to replace Richard Corddray when his term expires. Hence the Sierra Club helps you tell your House Reps to roll back the Holman rule and let federal workers do the jobs the American people need them to do.

Meanwhile, the state legislature of Michigan still plans to give away the public water of the town of Evart to Nestlé, so that Nestlé can make a giant profit off bottled water. Bottled water is one of the biggest scams in history (clean, public drinking water has been around for over a hundred years, after all, even if some municipalities do worse at protecting their water than others), but the even bigger scam, the one our politicians just can't shake, is that selling off public assets to big corporations is ever a good idea. You can only sell off public assets once, after all -- once they give this water to Nestlé, it's gone! -- and big corporations don't "deliver services" better than governments, they merely convert resources into CEO salary better than governments. But making money is not the be-all-end-all of existence, and mammon-worshipers shouldn't get all the say about everything. Hence Sum of Us helps you tell the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality to deep-six their plan to sell more public water to Nestlé.

Around the table: friendly reminders about Our New Overlords -- and about policies that work.

Jim Naureckas catches the New York Times wondering if Donald Trump will "continue to be the relentless populist" oh gosh I'm sorry I couldn't finish that sentence without spewing tea all over my computer. The idea that Donald Trump is any kind of "populist" insults not just intelligence but sentience, and we didn't need to witness him putting banksters in at Treasury and Commerce (or the anti-worker radical at Labor) to know that. Seriously, if all it takes to be a "populist" these days is a nasty attitude, our civilization is in deep trouble.

Trump spokeshack Kellyanne Conway is an extraordinarily inarticulate individual, so I guess it's possible that she didn't really mean to redefine bald lies as "alternative facts" on Meet the Press on Sunday. Still, the Facebook memes I've already seen (like this one, and this one) are not only apt and hilarious, they're weapons-grade PR. And I'd like to take on her initial response to Chuck Todd's apparent anger at that Sean Spicer press conference: "Don't be so overly dramatic about it, Chuck." If you're all about the drama, you don't get to call it "drama" when other people complain about what you're doing.

Speaking of drama, multiple news outlets report that Donald Trump brings his own cheering section to press conferences and speeches, which is why it seems like his ignorant utterings get "cheers" and "applause" from reporters and CIA operatives. This is a matter that (as Sarah Cooper says) could be fixed by someone moving the camera around the room a bit -- but then again, this is the same "liberal" media that completely fell for the obviously-deceptively-edited O'Keefe-in-a-pimp-suit video. Better to hope that good Americans tell each other that their President goes around trying to gaslight everyone into thinking everything he says is super-popular, and that we all come together to shame him for this behavior.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) announces he's going to vote for Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State after all. But you didn't really think he'd buck party leadership (or President Trump) on this one, did you? Remember what I said: when the "liberal" media reports on "fissures" within the Republican Party, you should regard these "fissures," and reports about them, as feints, designed to make you think some Republican is going to do something about this Trump guy -- so that you don't do something about this Trump guy. (Believing in the myth that "even Republicans oppose Trump" is, of course, another way to get you to sit back and wait for someone else to do something.)

Finally, Nathan Schneider at Yes! magazine reminds us that, back in the '30s, rural co-ops brought electricity to areas that power corporations wouldn't touch -- and that is the spirit that's more likely to revitalize forgotten America. Almost a thousand of these still exist in America, and they apparently even enjoy the support of Vice President Pence. You could kinda see why -- they put power (literally!) in smaller communities, and as long as they govern themselves adequately, they obviate the need for federal regulation and oversight. Of course, most contemporary "conservatives" would probably call co-ops "socialist" or "Communist," but they don't get all the say in America.

Action: Social Security and Medicare cuts, and the Pompeo nomination.

The Alliance for Retired Americans is sponsoring a national call-in day today, to tell President Trump to keep his campaign promise to protect Medicare and Social Security from benefit cuts, so call 1.202.456.1111 to do that. You may also want to call your Reps and Senators (as always, you can find their phone numbers using the tools in the upper left-hand corner of this page) to notify them that you have communicated your will to President Trump, and that they should follow the people's will by rejecting Medicare and Social Security benefit cuts themselves. The aptly-named Johnson plan (named either for its sponsor, Rep. Sam Johnson of Texas, or for that body part Republicans keep swinging in our faces) would cut Social Security benefits dramatically, and Paul Ryan's plan to privatize Medicare would do the same to Medicare. I'm going to go out on a limb and say the 54% of Americans who voted for someone other than Donald Trump do not want their Medicare and Social Security benefits endangered -- and I bet the majority of Donald Trump's 46% vote share don't want that, either. See? Keeping Medicare and Social Security strong enjoys actual bipartisan support. And since I mentioned it, how come I'm not hearing anything from the "liberal" media about the vital importance of bipartisanship these days? Is "bipartisanship" only important when Democrats control the Presidency and Congress?

Also, the Senate is planning to vote on Rep. Mike Pompeo's nomination for CIA chief today, so you may want to get on the phone to your Senators and tell them to reject his nomination. The Senate hoped to confirm Mr. Pompeo on Friday, but Democrats apparently managed to delay that for one more working day, and that gives us one more chance to stop the nomination of a man who believes that government spying on innocent Americans is A-OK, that Mr. Snowden's whistleblowing of NSA spying on innocent Americans is "treason," that we should keep Guantánamo Bay open for all the "terrorists" we can't even press charges against after all these years, and that people who use email encryption are probably terrorists. And he's also another one who thinks Muslims don't condemn terrorism enough. Aren't you tired of hearing your Tea Party uncle say that all the time? Less than 30 seconds of googling will reveal literally thousands of instances of Muslims actually condemning terrorist attacks, but why do all that work, when there are Trump votaries to be enraged? Yeah, I know, Mr. Pompeo said he was against torture at his confirmation hearing. But given that he thinks the Bush administration didn't torture, and that he said he "can't imagine" Mr. Trump giving him an order to torture someone (he must think we don't remember a thing!), I find his professed opposition suspect. And so should you.

UPDATE. And the Presidential comments line isn't taking comments right now. Apparently it was turned off during the transition, but it's almost Tuesday already, so I have to assume turning it back on and hearing good Americans' comments is not a priority for the Trump Administration. You can contact Mr. Trump here, I suppose, and maybe also tell him to turn on his phone.

Around the table: good Americans doing good works -- and the whiners and fools who try to hold us back.

Crowd numbers for Saturday Women's March in multiple cities well eclipse turnout for Mr. Trump's inauguration. You know organizers tend to overestimate turnout and police tend to underestimate it, but the D.C. Metro system reports that more than three times as many folks rode the subway by 11 am on Saturday than on Friday, the day Mr. Trump ascended to the Presidency. As this was happening, new press secretary Sean Spicer said the media manipulated photos to make inaugural turnout look worse than it was, because when the going gets tough, the Trump team whines. Mr. Trump got 46% of the vote, folks, and he struts around like he got 66%, then whines like he got 26%. But we have the power to make this a long four years for him, which is a lot better than vice versa.

Of course, before that, "liberal" media commentators were wringing their hands over Rep. Lewis boycotting the inauguration and questioning the "legitimacy" of the President. Of course, they don't criticizing Mr. Lewis to silence him -- they do it to silence you, so you "accept the results" and keep your mouth shut. Accepting the results does not impel you to keep your mouth shut, of course, even though the "liberal" media seems to think it does. (Read the whole article, of course, lest you miss another imploding Jonah Goldberg argument and speculation about whether Republicans might one day use "guerilla tactics" against a Democratic President, as if that isn't what they just did for eight long years.)

House Speaker Paul Ryan goes on Charlie Rose's show to say that he'd like to replace the Affordable Care Act's "subsidies" with "refundable tax credits," which are the same damn thing. I guess he'll go on to replace "houses" with "dwellings," "money" with "cash," and "food" with "sustenance." You know what's even worse than Democrats who are so smart they're dumb? Republicans who do badly even trying to convince you they're smart. Of course, Mr. Ryan would also make his health insurance subsidies far worse -- he would give almost everyone the same subsidy, regardless of income level, when any deaf, dumb, and blind infant knows that folks who make less money need bigger subsidies.

Behold! Right Wing Watch presents "10 Right-Wing Predictions About Obama that Never Came True." Didn't take your guns, didn't kill his critics, didn't impose Sharia law, didn't scheme to stay in office, and you know what's missing from their list? Didn't bring Godless socialism to America. So, will there be any, you know, shame coming from these right-wing prognosticators? Of course not -- they think shame is for losers, and their new President feels their self-pity.

Finally, Yes! magazine continues to explore "creative ways Americans are stepping up to build strong local economies." You'll meet the Oakland, CA, citizens who organized to ensure that the redevelopment of a long-gone Army base meet created good jobs for locals, the Nebraska ranchers who joined with environmental and tribal groups to stop the Keystone XL pipeline from running through their lands, the Goffstown, NH residents who banded together to buy the mobile home park that was threatening rent hikes and evictions, the Buffalo, NY residents who helped convert run-down buildings into energy-efficient housing, the South Carolina community development corporation that helped residents get good housing, and the good folks of West Virginia who evoked that state's coal-rich past by building museums. Moral: a lot of Americans have a lot of good ideas, and don't need to wait for some politician to "lead" them.

Around the table: peaceful protest as "economic terrorism," and other absurdities.

Spencer Woodman at The Intercept runs down five-count-'em-five bills proposed by Republican state legislators that aim to criminalize peaceful protest. The one from Washington state that would equate certain protests with "economic terrorism" is my personal favorite, and please understand that by "favorite" I mean "the bill I'd most like to see humiliate its author to the point where he never shows his face in public again." Don't figure that cooler heads will prevail and none of these laws will pass, because your representatives are nothing without you communicating your will to them.

In case you've been hearing that TEH DONALD IZ CREATINGZ TEH JOBZ ALREADYZ!!!!, please note that most of the corporations that have announced big job-creation plans in recent days are mostly announcing job-creation plans that have been in the works for some time. I mean, I'm as big a fan of public shaming as anyone, and if Mr. Trump were really shaming corporations into creating jobs, I'd be all for it. But when Sprint re-announces big job creation plans that they already announced long ago, or WalMart announces their regular amount of job creation not too long after cutting jobs, or Bayer announces job creation if their merger with Monsanto goes through (and that's some hostage-taking right there!), you have every reason to believe this is all snake oil salesmanship.

Oh, and if you're hurrying to protest the above paragraph by saying TEH AMAZON IZ ADDINGZ TEH 100,000 JOBZ!!!!, please note, as Greg LeRoy at Good Jobs First does, that if Amazon adds 100,000 jobs to its warehouses, that still won't make up for the loss of 200,000 jobs at brick-and-mortar retail stores over just the past four years. Yes, we can draw a direct line from one to the other, particularly when we remember that Amazon has been around since 1994, and we all remember the obliteration of medium-sized bookstore chains like B. Dalton Booksellers, Waldenbooks, and Encore Books (not to mention Borders!). (Also, too, Amazon sure gets a lot of corporate welfare handouts from states. How libertarian is that, Mr. Bezos?)

Outgoing FCC Chair Tom Wheeler explains why we should keep net neutrality rules. He wasn't that much in favor of them until millions of Americans spoke out, but Mr. Wheeler makes a case that should persuade folks who don't know much about net neutrality, and that's no small thing. Seriously, it doesn't have to be all freedom-from-corporate-interference all the time -- sometimes you need to hear someone say that net neutrality hasn't slowed capital investment or injured corporate profits, and sometimes you also need to hear someone cite "the desires of a few ISPs to be free of meaningful oversight," since that's what net neutrality opposition is really all about. And why should a few big telecoms get all the say about everything?

Finally, Michael T. Klare at TomDispatch describes the "four flash points" that could develop into an international crisis Mr. Trump will have to deal with as President. None of them will surprise you -- "North Korea, the South China Sea, the Baltic Sea region, and the Middle East," and it's good to be reminded that Gen. Mattis (Mr. Trump's Defense Secretary nominee) wanted to attack Iran back in 2011. But don't worry; somehow, for Republicans and their "liberal" media enablers, whatever happens will all be Mr. Obama's fault. And the same people who would blame Mr. Obama will call you a traitor if you blame Mr. Trump.

Action: two bad Trump nominees, national parks, and Dakota Access.

Senate hearings for Rep. Tom Price's nomination as Health and Human Services Secretary began yesterday, and Steve Mnuchin's hearings for Treasury Secretary begin today, but you can express your opposition to both with one phone call and two sentences, using the tools in the upper left-hand corner of this page. Your Senators need to know that Rep. Price's oft-stated desire to privatize Medicare makes him unfit to administer Medicare to our nation's seniors, and that Mr. Mnuchin's mania for making unearned millions off unfortunate foreclosed homeowners makes him unfit to head up our nation's Treasury. For Rep. Price, though, you could also cite simple corruption, as Judy Stone, writing at Forbes, summarizes here. The big story lately has been CNN's report that Mr. Price introduced a bill that would benefit Zimmer Biomet literally days after investing in Zimmer Biomet himself, but Ms. Stone's article documents a years-long pattern of corruption that's pretty hard to ignore. Even, perhaps, by the Diaper-Loaded-Brat-in-Chief who nominated him.

Meanwhile, Republicans will control both Houses of Congress and the Executive branch in a little over a day, so naturally (so to speak) they want to gut the Antiquities Act, with which the Executive branch designates certain national monuments, thus protecting them from polluters. With Mr. Trump anxious to drill everywhere immediately regardless of the consequences for good Americans' air and water, you can expect this attack with a quickness. Already the House has declared (in that notorious "rules package" from earlier this month) that it will consider any legislation that sells or gives away publicly-owned land (and/or the energy resources contained therein) to be "budget neutral." That'll be true whether it actually is budget-neutral or not -- and only seems to exist to prevent the American people from knowing which public lands have been sold off and for how much. What do they have to hide? An attempt to give away public lands to their cronies that'll be unpopular with the lands' actual owners, the American people? The Sierra Club helps you tell Congress to treat our public lands with the respect they deserve -- and treat us with the respect we deserve.

Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell the 17 banks currently financing the notorious Dakota Access pipeline to divest from that project, then CREDO still helps you do that. The Army Corps of Engineers has delayed giving some permits to Energy Transfer Partners (the corporation building Dakota Access) until they can complete another environmental review, but you can bet that the regulation-hating President Donald Trump will put as much pressure on the Army to dispense with that pesky environmental review as he can -- a lot of it through Twitter, I suspect -- and I wouldn't count on Congress being a stalwart defender of clean water and religious freedom (yes, Virginia, Native Americans also get to have religious freedom; it isn't just for right-wing bigots). But if the money ain't there, then it ain't getting built, no matter what our government does. A few banks have already divested from the project, but it's been a while since anyone saw water cannons hitting peaceful protestors, so the rest of them might be waiting until they think no one's watching. Which is why we remind them that we are watching them.

Around the table: thanking Republicans for civil rights, and other absurdities.

The Congressional Budget Office, as you know, has been forbidden by Republicans to disclose how much Obamacare repeal would affect the federal budget deficit -- but that doesn't mean it can't tell us other things, like that Obamacare repeal could throw 18 million folks off their insurance and result in a 50 percent health insurance premium hike just this year, followed by doubled health insurance premiums by 2026. Granted, premiums would continue to increase considerably faster than inflation by 2026 anyway, and the CBO's projection doesn't account for the possibility that Republicans will actually replace the Affordable Care Act with something -- though that's the way I'd bet, too! -- but it is nice to know the cost of the Republicans' mania to erase Barack Obama from history.

Jennifer Rubin, of all people, reminds us that Donald Trump's tax-cuts-for-the-rich are decidedly unpopular with the electorate, with more than six out of 10 Americans opposing. Still! Also, a near-supermajority of Americans oppose corporate tax breaks for infrastructure building, and another poll finds more than six in 10 Trump voters oppose corporate tax cuts! All of this will mean nothing, of course, if we don't clog their phone lines and demonstrate in front of their offices when they try to do all this unpopular, harmful crap.

As you may know, during that Obamacare repeal imbroglio, 13 Democratic Senators voted against cheaper drug importation from Canada -- all citing "safety" issues and not the real issue, which is their massive campaign contributions from big pharmaceutical corporations -- but Richard Eskow reminds us that this excuse is utter bunk, since "Canadian (drug) testing is as strong as its American equivalent, and most Canadian drugs are manufactured in the same locations as their US counterparts." He also reminds us that these very same 13 Democratic Senators voted for the 21st Century Cures Act, which actually weakens drug safety testing standards in a supposed quest to get to those "21st Century Cures" faster. Also, too, 13 Democratic Senators against drug importation meant that the 12 Republican Senators for drug importation meant nothing, almost like that was the whole idea. One can only hope this vote comes back to haunt Sen. Booker when he runs for President in 2020.

From Edwin Rios at Mother Jones, we learn that Betsy DeVos's confirmation hearing for Education Secretary didn't go very well. Her suggestion that schools might need guns to protect against "grizzlies" will probably be her Greatest Hit, but I bet right-wing punditoids use that as an example of how out-of-touch Democrats are with rural areas (this, though grizzlies normally avoid humans unless provoked). About her alleged non-involvement in certain donations to Focus on the Family by the foundation of which she was the Vice President until at least 2014, I'm sure right-wingers will be far more credulous. Still, the guy who nominated her did worse in just about every public performance, and still got elected, so we're going to have so make a lot more phone calls.

Finally, who's been an even bigger jerk to Rep. John Lewis (D-SC) than Donald Trump lately? Why, Maine Governor Paul LePage, of course! Mr. LePage thinks folks like John Lewis, instead of calling Mr. Trump an "illegitimate" President, should be thankful for all that Republicans have done for civil rights. Never mind that Mr. LePage's list of Republicans who did great things for black folk stops at the year 1880, or that he's just dead wrong about Jim Crow laws -- no one in America needs to "thank" a politician for doing good works for their constituents, because doing good works is their fucking job. Who should thank for civil rights advances? Folks like Mr. Lewis, who put his life on the line for it -- and each other, for making sure those advances don't get rolled back.

Action: the Pruitt nomination, law enforcement disclosure, and animal abuse.

Scott Pruitt's hearings for EPA Administrator begin today, so you can use the tools in the upper left-hand corner of this page to call your Senators and tell them to reject Mr. Pruitt's nomination. Mr. Trump's Cabinet nominees have hit upon a fairly clever mantra in their hearings: that their past extremism doesn't matter if their job in the Cabinet will be to enforce the law. But that mantra doesn't even work with Mr. Pruitt, for his current job in Oklahoma as state Attorney General is to enforce the law, but he's left good Oklahomans in the lurch time and time again when he had to choose between enforcing the law and placating some big campaign donor. You think he won't leave America in the lurch, too? Ideologues like Mr. Pruitt and Mr. Trump say regulations get in the way of job creation -- but no corporation creates jobs if it can get away with it! And regulations do create jobs for the people who help corporations comply with them -- the people who help redesign and rebuild power plants, for example. And, really, clean air and clean water are far too vital to leave up to corporatist ideologues.

Meanwhile, Sign for Good helps you demand that the Department of Justice (whoever runs it!) require that law enforcement agencies report all deaths of folks in custody. The DOJ already has the power to do this, too, with authority granted by the Death in Custody Reporting Act, and to folks who reflexively respond that we should just "let police do their jobs," I'd respond: is killing people who have not been convicted of a crime, whether accidentally or deliberately, part of their job? And seriously, what do police officers have to hide? If an unusually high number of Americans die in custody in a particular town, why shouldn't the rest of the town's residents know that? Particularly since, you know, it might directly impact their lives? You won't find a Trump Attorney General who'll agree with you, of course -- Mr. Sessions, during his hearings, has said the Justice Department needs to be more of a "partner" to police. Of course, I'm only satisfied when the police is a partner to the American people. And just because Mr. Trump ain't with us doesn't mean we shouldn't speak out -- if anything, we should be more persistent.

Finally, from the "Dystopia is happening now!" file: did you know that harvesting pregnant horse blood was a thing? Apparently, it is -- (mostly) European pharmaceutical corporations hook up pregnant horses to machines that drain their blood, which often leads to shock, anemia, collapse, and, as you might imagine, death. Why do they do it? Because the blood of a pregnant horse, and only a pregnant horse, contains a hormone used to regulate the reproductive cycle of pigs (and therefore meat production) at factory farms. Always it seems to come back to factory farms! Is it really so great that most Americans don't produce any of their own food anymore? Of course, the horse's story gets worse: no one tells the corporations when they should stop drawing blood -- though you'd think they'd be smart about it, and not take so much that they kill the horse! -- and these corporations also induce both pregnancies and abortions in the course of their work. Next time someone says big pharma corporations are vampires, now you can say "you don't know the half of it!" Avaaz helps you tell the EU to stamp out the pregnant horse blood trade.

Action: education, consumer protection, and worker protection.

Mr. Trump's nominee for Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, faces the U.S. Senate beginning today, hence you can call your Senators and tell them to reject her nomination. As always, you need not write a five-paragraph essay; a mere sentence will do, like this one: I oppose the DeVos nomination because I fear she will divert taxpayer money to private schools without any oversight or accountability. A lot of Democrats, as you know, have rationalized their support for the charter school scam by promising that the state will ensure those charter schools will do a good job, but they typically don't deliver on those promises, and Ms. DeVos really doesn't deliver on those promises -- thanks to her family's efforts in Michigan, that state now has no less than 45 charter school "authorizers," and why isn't the state doing that job on the people's behalf? In short: charter schools steal money from the taxpayer to run schools that perform no better than the public schools they impoverish. And Ms. DeVos would bring that "winning" formula to the entire nation. Unless we make noise.

Meanwhile, Republicans controlling our government have the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (or CFPB) in their sights. "Effective consumer protections aren't some sort of luxury we can't afford," the latest email missive from USPIRG reminds us, "they're hallmarks of a great state, a great country, and a great society." Indeed they are -- even though folks like Donald Trump seem to think you measure greatness in America by how much you get away with stealing from other people, and though Republicans typically condemn any attempt to stop snake oil salesman from hurting us as "big government," completely oblivious, it seems, to the fact that when a bankster screws its customers, it's still all over the news. Indeed, without the CFPB, it's very likely no one would have caught Wells Fargo opening up accounts without their customers' consent, and certainly no one would have known that two of the three largest credit reporting agencies were inflating credit scores. So USPIRG helps you tell your Senators to reject efforts to destroy or weaken the CFPB. You know what? Call them afterward. They won't see it coming.

Finally, speaking of Wells Fargo, Americans for Financial Reform helps you tell T-Mobile to stop mandating the kind of unrealistic sales goals that enabled so much lawbreaking at Wells Fargo. Remember how we all rooted for T-Mobile when AT&T was trying to buy it, and how pleased we all were when the Justice Department managed to scuttle the merger in 2011 merely by threatening a lawsuit over it, and how pleased we were to see them doing so much better after being spared assimilation into AT&T's empire? Well, that's over with now, since T-Mobile's management has apparently been threatening its sales reps with reduced pay, reduced hours, and termination if they don't add unneeded lines, services, and equipment to their customers' accounts. People who work for a living deserve better than that, and the customers they serve also deserve better than that. And no, pressuring T-Mobile to stop making its employees' lives hell does not constitute some sort of "oppression," for this is America, and the Big Stick of Bad PR is ours to use at any time. Even if haters gonna hate.

Around the table: that smooth operator Jeff Sessions, and other absurdities.

Marjorie Cohn at TruthOut writes that "Smooth-Talking Jeff Sessions Can't Hide Disturbing Record." Read the whole thing and be reminded that whatever good thing you've fought for over the years, Sen. Sessions has fought against. Let's take the "smooth-talking" part, though: note well that Mr. Sessions repeatedly said he'd "enforce the law," even adding that it wouldn't be his job "to decide which laws to enforce" (which you'd know is rubbish if you've ever had to, you know, deal with finite time and resources); it's interesting that, much as Mitt Romney pretended to be a liberal in his first debate with Mr. Obama, Mr. Sessions casts himself as someone different to the national public, as if he knows his works are basically unpopular, and for good reason.

Seth Kershner at In These Times asks: "Can Labor Unions Organize Retail Workers?" If you find yourself asking why they're not doing this already, here's one reason: retail corporations aggressively propagandize their workers against unions, often in mandatory meetings, with statements like "unions are businesses, multimillion-dollar businesses that make their money by convincing people like you and me to give them a part of our paychecks." We could rewrite that, you know, to say "your employer is a multibillion-dollar business that makes its money by convincing people like you to work for considerably less money than you'd make if you belonged to a union." But here's another reason: unions have become ossified, "top-heavy" "bureaucracies" that focus more on getting campaign contributions to Democratic politicians than staying engaged with their workers, a lot of whom don't even know they're in a union. The good news: the worker center, where workers can talk shop about their struggles and organize to ameliorate them, offers a way out.

Biloxi, MS officials tell folks on Twitter that certain municipal offices will close on something called "Great Americans Day," and then the good citizens of Biloxi remind them that those offices will actually close on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Of course, in some areas of the South, yesterday was also Robert E. Lee Day, because a lot of Southern politicians are whiny, diaper-loaded brats who can't stomach the fact that we have a national holiday celebrating a black man. Maybe they'll get a Bull Connor Day on the Friday preceding it to further massage their hurt fee-fees. To think that people actually say liberals are whiners!

Incoming Trump Administration mulls plan to move White House press corps from their room inside the White House, possibly to a room in the next building. Trump team hysteria about the "opposition party" aside, the headline is a bit misleading, and personal to those who fret about the national press having reduced "access" to the White House: plenty of good Americans (the Standing Rock protestors, for example) are happy to give journalists "access" to news, but journalists generally aren't interested in it, because they serve mammon. In their less embedded state, the "liberal" media might produce better journalism. Note well that I said "might." And I'm always more optimistic about the American people than I am about the "liberal" media.

Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) finds himself swamped by constituents worried about Obamacare repeal at a "constituent meeting" (they're sure they never said "townhall"!), then skips out six minutes early. That's some upright leadership right there. They say they'll have more of these meetings (Mr. Coffman met with 70 constituents in 84 minutes! How could you possibly expect more of him than that?), but this is exactly the kind of thing that should be happening in every Congressperson's office, everywhere in the country. And when our enemies retort by whining about "the brutality of the mob," just remember that they fear you. Gosh, maybe one day they'll fear us more than they fear their paymasters.

Finally, protestors at UC Davis shut down a planned talk to be given by racist/self-hating gay man Milo Yiannopoulos and hedge fund manager/mammon-worshiper Martin Shkreli. No truth to the rumor that Satan was also on the bill, but couldn't get there due to Route 5 traffic. Seriously, though, why are we giving so much space to the whining of fascists that protestors were "violent" (they weren't) and "shut down" their free speech? The First Amendment protects you from your government, not from protestors. Yes, even at a "public" university. And I'm sick of all the whining about "intolerance" of ideas like "white" "supremacy" and greed-being-good. Would right-wingers also like us to "tolerate" rapists and child molestors?

Around the table: more "liberal" media folly, plus good news and useful advice.

Glenn Greenwald criticizes Democrats for embracing both the primacy of the intelligence community and flimsy media reporting against Donald Trump. Mr. Greenwald may see the intelligence community as a more unambiguous evil than I do, but I agree that the infamous "golden shower" report isn't well-sourced, let alone well-verified -- and it has already benefited Mr. Trump enough that I've voiced suspicions that he planned it that way. And n.b. that Mr. Greenwald takes pains to tell us that "(t)here are solutions to Trump. They involve reasoned strategizing and patient focus on issues people actually care about."

Remember a while back, when I advised everyone to ignore "liberal" media horserace coverage -- and specifically to treat reports of "fissures" within the Republican Party as feints, designed to lull you into a false sense of security so you don't call your Reps and Senators? Well, here's Exhibit A of that horserace coverage: speculation that Rex Tillerson's nomination to be Mr. Trump's Secretary of State is somehow "in trouble." You should ignore such things, not so much because, seriously, Marco Rubio bucking party leadership? That is to laugh!, but because it's up to the American people to scuttle the nomination, through patient and persistent pressure on their Senators.

EPA follows the lead of the American people and decides to keep fuel efficiency standards it issued in 2012, standards that automakers are already exceeding. Of course, Mr. Trump will try to scuttle them, because TEH REGULASHUNZ ARE ALWAYSZ TEH BADZ!!!!!, but when he does, we'll be there, demanding to know why Americans must always choose between corporate profits and consumers spending less money on gas (let alone why we must always choose between corporate profits and better health, or corporate profits and clean air!).

Anthony Flaccavento at Yes! magazine discusses "Three Ways Progressives Can Reconnect with Rural America." Though the "liberal" media has only recently noticed (and wouldn't have noticed at all if Hillary Clinton had won the Presidency), rural Americans have been "grappling with economic transition for more than 50 years," and it's not only made them "resilient" but "fed up with establishment politics and economics." So here are the three things: one, see the environment not just as a theory but as a way of making a living, as it is for rural folks; two, celebrate how rural folks are innovating their way out of trouble (Mr. Flaccavento gives four examples), and three, "talk less, and differently," which most emphatically does not mean talking "dumb."

Finally, the NFL's San Diego Chargers announce their impending move to Los Angeles after failing to secure taxpayer support for a new stadium. So now Los Angeles will have two NFL teams they couldn't possibly care less about! The underlying theme in this story, of course, is that good San Diego residents emphatically rejected a measure increasing hotel taxes to fund a new stadium, even though San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer (who now comprises just about the entire Republican bench in California) supported it. It's a bit rich (so to speak) hearing NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell say the Chargers "worked diligently toward finding a local stadium solution," when if they'd worked "diligently," they'd have paid for the damn thing themselves like teams did in the old days, instead of demanding corporate welfare.

Around the table: health care, "liberal" media follies, and Stupid Protesting Tricks.

Senate Republicans begin the process of repealing the Affordable Care Act. They all voted against an amendment to preserve the famous ban on insurers kicking people off policies for pre-existing conditions; think that'll show up in Democrat attack ads come 2018? I kid, of course; these are Democrats we're talking about. For my money, the worst thing any Senator had to say about it came from Mississippi's Roger Wicker: "This is our opportunity to keep our campaign promise...This is our opportunity to help the president-elect and the vice president-elect keep their campaign promises and show to the American people that elections have consequences." The part about "campaign promises" is irrelevant, since we good Americans communicate our will to our representatives regardless of their promises. And the part about "consequences" sounds rather like a threat.

Michael Corcoran calls 2016 "A Bad Year for Democracy" but the "Best Ever" for "Big Media." Why, it's almost like the two phenomena are related! Seriously, though, big media corporations got almost $2.5 billion in campaign ads, CNN demanded "40 times its normal rate" for ads during its September 16 Presidential debate, and even the NFL -- the NFL! -- seemed to lose viewers to cable news channels during the campaign. This is why we need a Constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United and corporate "personhood." It's also why we need to be able to buy cable channels a la carte -- when we can withhold money from these clowns, they'll clean up their act.

Buried in the House rules resolution that failed to deep-six the Office of Congressional Ethics is this dung nugget: the House has forbidden the Congressional Budget Office to estimate the cost of the Affordable Care Act's repeal. What do they have to hide, you wonder? Well, the CBO estimated back in June, before having their hands tied, that Obamacare repeal would cost between $137 billion and $353 billion over the next decade -- and the CBO, having been hamstrung by the Republican House in other ways in recent years, is probably low-balling that figure.

Apparently the so-called Project Veritas group -- a creation of James O'Keefe, who destroyed ACORN and almost destroyed Shirley Sherrod's life with deceptively-edited videos -- has been trying to bribe left-wing activists to riot at Mr. Trump's inaugural. Of course, the "liberal" media won't report this, since they're still embarrassed that they completely fell for Mr. O'Keefe's ACORN scam despite, you know, having had all that post-modernist literary training at major universities that would have alerted them to the presence of suspicious edits in film. Really, some people are so smart, they're dumb.

In a related note, BuzzFeed informs us that a horrible anti-Trump sign at an anti-Trump protest back in November was actually the brainchild of a right-wing activist looking, of course, to discredit protestors. Why can't they play fair, you wonder? Because if they play fair, they'll lose. And why are their protests so witless? I sure hope it isn't because liberals possess the lion's share of wit in America, because I do like to believe the best about people. I mean, Evelyn Waugh is very funny.

Finally, I understand Donald Trump had a, shall we say, spirited exchange with the press on Wednesday, dressing down a reporter in front of his peers. But if you remember wishing Barack Obama would do more than dismiss the "chattering classes" -- that is, if you wished he had offered a cogent critique analyzing how bad the "liberal" media is at its job and why -- you can't get too upset about Mr. Trump's latest tantrum, particularly when the liberal "media"'s response to his abuse is please-sir-may-I-have-another. And I still find all the "liberal" media's handwringing over "fake news" to have a pot-kettle-black problem. They might, you know, want to try doing actual journalism about things that really affect good Americans' lives, instead of pandering to the alleged shallowness of the American people for easy money. They might also want to consider whether the report alleging various "compromising personal and financial information" might have come out shortly before the press conference for a reason.

Action: three bad Trump nominees, Presidential conflicts of interest, and oil and gas drilling in the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans.

Rex Tillerson's hearings for Secretary of State started yesterday, while Mike Pompeo's hearing for CIA chief and Wilbur Ross's hearing for Secretary of Commerce start today, and you can express your opposition to all three nominees in one phone call to your Senators. Like yesterday, I urge you to keep it to one sentence per item: you can say you oppose Mr. Tillerson because of his obvious conflicts of interest as a corporate CEO, that you oppose Mr. Pompeo because he wants to put people who use email and internet encryption in jail, and that you oppose Mr. Ross because he'll hand over more and more of our economy to his fellow banksters. I had trouble getting through to my Senators yesterday (I even left a message at one's local office), which may be a good thing -- or it may not, if you suspect they're just not picking up the phone. But the country we love hasn't gone over to the dark side just yet: if we found out our Senators just weren't picking up the phone, one call to our local TV and radio stations would kill that behavior dead. And please do not tolerate any guff from your Senators about them "deferring to the President's prerogative to pick his own advisers" -- the only people they're supposed to "defer" to is us.

Speaking of Presidential "prerogatives," H.R. 371/S. 65, the Presidential Conflicts of Interest Act, would require Presidents and Vice Presidents (who could very quickly become Presidents if tragedy strikes, after all!) to sell off any personal assets that might interfere with their ability to execute their duty to the American people, and also to put those personal assets in a true blind trust managed by someone independent. Gosh, could anything be happening to prompt some of our Congressfolk to propose such a thing? Does our incoming President (to be inaugurated in eight days) owe hundreds of millions of dollars to a German bank which just so happens to be staring down YUGE fines from our Justice Department? Has he been working the phones with world leaders to push the Trump brand? Has he refused to sell off his holdings, instead proposing that his children run his businesses? I kid, of course -- the answer to all of these questions is yes, and as Americans, we can do better, and we deserve better. Hence Demand Progress helps you tell your Reps and Senators to support the Presidential Conflicts of Interest Act.

Finally, President Obama used his authority under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to declare most of the Arctic Ocean and parts of the Atlantic Ocean off-limits to oil and gas drillers -- but Mr. Obama's successor, Donald Trump, has this YUGE hard-on to drill everywhere in America, clean air and clean water be damned. A President Trump very likely couldn't simply overturn the Obama bans, but two Alaska Congressfolk (Sen. Dan Sullivan and Rep. Don Young) are apparently contemplating legislation that would either rescind the Obama bans or limit the President's authority under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act generally. Of course, we know that gas and oil drilling in the Arctic won't be so easy to clean up as it was in the Gulf (or, ahem, as it would have been if BP had made the effort), and we also know that developing renewable energy sources is much better for us in the long run. So Penn Environment helps you tell your Congressfolk to keep protecting these Arctic and Atlantic Ocean areas from pollution.

Around the table: important notes about three Trump Cabinet nominees, plus some good news.

If you find you're on the fence about Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State, this rather exhaustive article entitled "Rex Tillerson Could Be America's Most Dangerous Secretary of State" may persuade you to hop off it. It starts with human rights and environmental abuses overseas and at home, and goes on to analyze why Mr. Tillerson would take a job that's a "step down" from what he's currently doing; none of it bodes well for our country or our future. (And I have to say that the Exxon subsidiary doing business with Iran while our government imposed sanctions on Iran isn't a good look, either -- their rationalizations may get them off in court, but they won't win hearts and minds here in America.)

Upwards of one-thirds of donors who've given $5,000 or more to Sen. Jeff Sessions have known matters (including lawsuits and contracts) before the Department of Justice, which Mr. Sessions would head, if confirmed as Attorney General. If you're quick to respond BOTH SIDEZ DO TEH THINGSZ!!!!, you would do better to respond "is this right?" or "should campaign donations give you more access to our government than the vast majority of American citizens who don't poop money?" But it sure is a good thing Mitch McConnell demanded the President make sure his Cabinet appointees get their ethical and financial house in order before the Senate held any hearings! Oh, wait, that was 2009.

In other Trump nominee-related news, Rep. Tom Price has apparently established quite the record of bringing the bacon home to his big campaign donors. That includes battling certain Medicare cuts, apparently -- but only the ones that would affect his biggest donors in the medical device industry. He's also written letters to the FDA on behalf of some of his biggest donors, begging exemption from clinical trials for these "pillar(s) of the community," which is a surprise, given that the FDA hasn't lately been a stalwart defender of the public interest to begin with. At any rate, I'm sure he'll tell us he was "helping out his constituents," though why a big donor rates as a constituent and all the other folks in his district don't is a question well worth asking.

Bad news, folks: the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood informs us that the National Park Service has largely ignored the popular will and decided to dramatically ramp up corporate advertising in our national parks. And here we all thought we went to our national parks to get in touch with forces that existed long before mass media and commercialism -- and will exist long after. Wow, that statement just gave me a great deal more comfort than it ever has been before! But CCFC tells us that nearly 80% of public comments opposed more corporate advertising in public parks, and I do recall Newt Gingrich telling us once that if 70% of the public want something, they should get it.

Far better news: the city of Seattle has met with enough success in establishing three tiny-home encampment sites for homeless folks that they're going to establish three more. Kudos to Seattle for using publicly-owned space for the encampments; too many cities hold on to unused public space like grim death, hoping to make a killing or give it to a big donor as a favor. Putting homeless folks up, as we know from several recent studies (and from the state of Utah's efforts), actually costs less than providing services to the homeless on an emergent basis. (Oh, and in case you were wondering, tiny homes are typically so small that they can evade the bureaucratic processes that would slow their production -- not that I oppose these processes, necessarily, but you can move into your dream home now or later; homeless folks need somewhere to sleep right now.)

Finally, some potentially outstanding news: Indian scientist Manu Prakash has developed a device based on a whirlygig that can spin biological samples over 10 times faster than other similar machines -- and he built it with about 20 cents of art store supplies! The Paperfuge can get plasma out of a blood sample in 90 seconds, which beats the industry standard by about half a minute -- and, thanks to its inexpensiveness, can do the most good in the world's impoverished areas: "(t)here are a billion people on this planet who live with no electricity, no infrastructure, no roads, and they have the same kind of health care needs that you and I have," Dr. Prakash says, and they deserve the same kind of health care that you and I have, too.

Action: ACA repeal and Planned Parenthood defunding.

Here's the deal for today: using the tools in the upper left-hand corner of this page, you can call your Reps and Senators and tell them to preserve the Affordable Care Act and reject any attempt to zero out federal funding for Planned Parenthood. I don't have a handy email tool to help you with these tasks, but I think phone calls are more effective anyway, especially at a time like this -- clogging up their phone lines makes the news, as it did during that attempt to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics. Of course, we want everyone else to make their calls, too, so make your call as short as possible. You can tell your Reps and Senators that you oppose Affordable Care Act repeal because (as Tony Nitti explained in Forbes not too long ago) it will raise taxes on middle-class families while handing out more unearned tax cuts to the rich. And you can tell your Reps and Senators that you oppose attempts to cut Planned Parenthood funding because it'll hurt working families who need pre-natal care and cancer screenings. You can no doubt think of other things to say (that Obamacare repeal would throw nearly 30 million people off their health care, that the whole Planned Parenthood controversy was ginned up by bogus videos made by right-wing activists), but I'd keep it to one simple sentence for each item. Remember that you don't have to make some grand argument to your Reps or Senators -- whoever answers the phone has no job except to take down what you say and relay it to their bosses. And don't worry about these staffers arguing with you, either, because that's not their job.

A word about the Affordable Care Act. I've never been very supportive of it -- it's put nearly 30 million more Americans into the private, corporate health insurance system, which isn't as good as what our government offers (and remember that even Trump supporters seem to agree!). The Affordable Care Act hasn't made health insurance cheaper, either -- it's merely slowed the rate at which prices go up, which isn't tremendously impressive. Medicare-for-All, single-payer health care would actually cut health care costs and provide more care to all Americans, but of course we can't have nice things in America, because it would hurt health insurance CEO's fee-fees. (Note well that I qualified "CEO" with "health insurance": I expect that if we were to ask the rest of the economy's CEOs if they'd like to pay noticeably less they're paying now in health insurance -- which is what single-payer would allow them to do! -- a lot of them would say yes.) But I know ACA repeal will hit a lot of good Americans very, very hard in the pocketbook, and Republicans are being silent on how they'll replace it -- a matter they've had seven years to contemplate! -- and they're being silent for very good reason: when they do advertise their alternatives, people hate them. And frankly, handing out another $350 billion over 10 years in tax cuts for the rich while raising taxes for working families by getting rid of their tax credits makes me sick to my stomach. I'll never give up the battle for a Medicare-for-All, single-payer system, but I'll be damned if our government gives yet more welfare handouts to the undeserving rich while sticking it to working families. And that's what Obamacare repeal will do.

One more thing. If you can't get through to your Senators -- at least one of mine had a full mailbox yesterday when I called about Jeff Sessions -- then call one of their local, in-state offices. You can get a phone number for a local number from your Senators' websites. Your Senator's website will be lastname.senate.gov (Sen. Warren, for example, would be warren.senate.gov). Good luck and God bless.

Action: demanding Medicare-for-All health insurance, and opposing two particularly noxious Trump Cabinet picks.

The People's Email Network helps you tell your Congressfolk to expand Medicare so that it includes all Americans, and thus bring single-payer health care to America. Hey, the morons did ask -- no, really, Congressfolk have actually been asking good Americans what we would like to do about health care once Republicans finally kill the Affordable Care Act. Perhaps they're hoping for a groundswell of support for the concept of the "health savings account," but of course they won't get that. Why? Because anyone can see that a "health savings account" is not insurance -- that it is literally not a situation where people pool their money together to help out any one of them at any one time, but rather a tax-free savings account you would use to pay for your own health insurance needs. And in a land where too many working families work their butts off and still can't pay all their bills, who has money to put into a special tax-free savings account? Rich folks, that's who. Which makes the "health savings account" what, kids? Yet another welfare handout for rich people, that's what. Better we expand the Medicare pool to include all of us, which would put a lot more healthy people in it. Now that's insurance!

Meanwhile, President-elect Trump has said that he not wants to make torture of terror suspects legal again; no doubt that's one of the many ways he got to his YUGE 46% share of the popular vote. Now, in recent weeks, we've heard that his pick for Secretary of Defense, former Gen. James Mattis, has opposed torture of terror suspects -- that he has, in fact, told Mr. Trump that he can do a lot more with a few beers and a pack of cigarettes. And that has, in fact, proven to be a far more effective way of getting good intelligence from terror suspects than torturing them until they tell you whatever they think will make you stop. But, of course, that doesn't mean our government won't heartily embrace torture when Mr. Trump takes office -- it could just mean Gen. Mattis loses a lot of arguments, probably to the torture-happy Mike Pompeo if the Senate confirms him as CIA chief. Hence Amnesty International helps you tell Mr. Pompeo to keep human rights (including the right not to be tortured by our government) in mind if and when he becomes CIA Chief. Sounds like a dead-end job, I know, but he probably doesn't get phone calls from anyone besides the Koch brothers, so this'll be good for him.

Finally, CREDO helps you tell Senate Democrats to do whatever they can to block the ascension of Rep. Tom Price to Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. We'll talk more about Mr. Trump's nominees tomorrow morning -- since Mr. McConnell plans to confirm a whole slew of them tomorrow, in the apparent hope that most folks won't find out how horrible they are! -- but Mr. Price deserves special consideration, for a number of reasons. For one, Mr. Price is another one who thinks "conservatism" means nothing so much as making life harder for gays and women, and as someone in charge of enforcing whatever remains of the Affordable Care Act after Congress is done with it, you know what that means -- no birth control coverage, and big gaps in health care coverage for gays. For another thing, Mr. Price wants to cut Medicaid, privatize Medicare, and slash CHIP funding, which latter item even most rank-and-file Republicans like. And if you think Mr. Trump really meant it when he said he'd protect Medicare, his nomination of Mr. Price should remind you that it's not your job as a citizen to "trust your President" -- it's your job to hold your President accountable.

UPDATE. Add a third noxious Trump Cabinet pick to oppose, as the Senate has begun hearings on Attorney General Jeff Sessions today. You can use the tools in the upper left-hand corner of this page to call your Senators and ask them to oppose the Sessions nomination. I'd make it quick, because I'm sure a lot of people are trying to get through -- don't recount the entire history of his mid-80s federal judgeship nomination, but just say you don't think he won't enforce civil rights laws. I think that's good enough. And remember: your Senators' staffers aren't there to argue with you; they're there to take down your will and relay it to their bosses. Good luck and God bless -- we're going to have a much bigger slate of noxious nominees to run through in the coming days.

Action: protecting Medicare and Social Security yea, making corporations clean up their messes yea, and book deals for racist pigs nay.

Congressional Republicans are all hot to cut Social Security and Medicare, as you know, but Mr. Trump promised on the campaign trail that he wouldn't stand for that. Of course, Mr. Trump has already admitted that he said he'd lock Hillary Clinton up just to get people all excited, so you'd be right to suspect pretty much anything he's ever said. But remember: it doesn't matter what he wants; it matters what we want. Hence Social Security Works helps you remind Mr. Trump to keep his promise to the American people and veto any Social Security or Medicare cuts passed by Congress. Does it matter that we tell him? Yes, it matters -- we go on record as saying what we the people want, and if he defies us, he goes on record as having failed to do his duty as President. Too often we imagine that single defeats on single issues define us, but they don't -- expressing our will is a victory, and forcing the President to confront our will is also a victory, no matter how it turns out for us. We only suffer defeat when we're silent. And I don't worry about whether we "demand too much" or "play the game" well enough -- I don't play 13-dimensional chess; I only speak my mind.

Meanwhile, some 14 months have passed since the Bento Rodrigues mining dam disaster in Brazil, which spewed forth mining waste-laden mud to the tune of some 10 billion gallons into the Doce River, thus befouling the drinking water of a quarter of a million good Brazilians. Good luck if you're in the fishing industry around there, too, because no one's eating any of those fish after they've been swimming around in that muck. Some two months later, the Brazilian government and Samarco, the corporation that owned the mining dam, settled for $4.8 billion, but Samarco has only been paying affected fishermen some $400 monthly, which is rather less than they were making before the accident. Hence Sum of Us helps you tell Samarco to do right by all the people it hurt with its dam accident. At least one engineer claims he warned Samarco about structural problems with the dam that then went unfixed, but you expected that, didn't you? Samarco didn't operate for a few months after the accident (by Brazilian government mandate), and its CEO claimed shortly before settling that Samarco didn't have very much money. Well, they should have thought of that before they polluted all that water that all those people depended upon!

Finally, from the "This Is Not Normal" file: Simon & Schuster has given Breitbart hack/professional Twitter harasser Milo Yiannopoulos a quarter million-dollar book deal, possibly to tell the heartwarming story of how he clawed to the top of the entertainment and political world by hurling witless insults at people of color. Hence Color of Change helps you tell Simon & Schuster to change their mind and yank Mr. Yiannopoulous's precious book contract away. And they might buckle under the Big Stick of Bad PR, as Simon & Schuster's U.K. division has already declared it won't publish his book (think his own countryfolk might know him better than us?). Mr. Yiannopoulos will no doubt tell you that this would be yet another attempt to suppress his freedom of speech, but nobody's putting him in jail for speaking his mind, and no one has a First Amendment right to a book advance. (After all, you know who gave me an advance to write a book? Precisely no one! Didn't stop me, now, did it?) Furthermore, boycotts and letter-writing campaigns do not constitute "oppression" -- rather, they constitute our free speech, since free speech doesn't run in only one direction at a time, and they constitute our effort to shame someone who has injured the community of civilized human beings. Someone's gotta do it, after all.

Around the table: tax hikes, border walls, state legislators, and conflicts of interest.

Tony Nitti at Forbes reminds us that repealing the Affordable Care Act will also amount to "Tax Cuts for the Rich" and "Tax Increases and Lost Insurance for the Rest." Small tax hikes on income above $250,000 fund the ACA, and tax breaks help lower-income consumers pay their premiums through the exchanges. If Republicans get rid of these things, as they're aching to do, the top 1% of income earners will see, on average, a $33,000 windfall -- while taxpayers making up to $89,000 will see a tax increase. If that isn't a middle-class tax hike, I don't know what is.

So, about that Donald Trump "mandate": Pew Research finds that less than four in 10 Americans think building that great big wall across our border with Mexico is a top priority. People constantly talk about how stupid Americans supposedly are, but I see this as an indication that we're not stupid -- why, it's almost like we know that 20-foot walls only mean 22-foot ladders! (Note well that it's not necessarily "inconsistent" that 62% want "most" undocumented immigrants be able to stay here legally and 58% of folks want to increase deportations -- it's not going to be the same 58% saying both, though there'll be some overlap, and folks don't necessarily know exactly how many undocumented immigrants are here or how many we're deporting.)

Robert Faturichi at ProPublica reports -- in an admirably restrained manner that more resembles unbiased journalism than anything the "liberal" media puts out -- on how right-wing lobbying groups like ALEC plan to keep state legislatures red. These ALEC people sure do have message discipline -- ALEC's vice president of policy tells us that state legislators aren't "the trailblazers of developing policies," but are rather "the retail consumers" of policy. How many times must I tell these pimps! Everything is not a business! And if legislators must be "consumers" of bills, they should go to their constituents, not special interest groups, to get their fix.

Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) got a lot of notoriety for pushing that whole Office of Congressional Ethics rollback that American citizens stopped last week, and Sue Sturgis at Facing South suggests Mr. Goodlatte might have had a personal reason to push ethics changes: his wife owns stock in a corporation that's trying to build a pipeline through West Virginia and Virginia, and Mr. Goodlatte has gone to bat for it. No use Mr. Goodlatte saying the pipeline doesn't run through his district, when he's tried to get the FERC to act on the pipeline. (He's also suggested it's important that his wife owns the stock, not him, which shouldn't fly with anyone who's ever planned finances with their spouse.)

Finally, the Wall Street Journal finds that businesses in which Donald Trump has at least a 30 percent ownership stake owe at least $1.8 billion to various creditors. Which is more evidence of what I keep saying: that the major drag on our democracy isn't taxes, but debt. I fear we're about to see that played out in a very, very big way for the next four or eight years, as Mr. Trump makes decision after decision that's completely inexplicable until you follow the debt trail.

Around the table: in which federal employees take hits -- and get back up.

President-elect Trump orders all politically-appointed ambassadors to leave their posts before Inauguration Day. Typically Presidents grant extensions to these ambassadors to transition more easily to private life, but I'm also pretty sure these ambassadors are of some use to their successors; now they're not, and they may not get replaced for a few months, all so that Mr. Trump can continue the Republicans' obsession with Mr. Obama. Remember this the next time terrorists attack.

House revives "Holman rule," which could allow individual lawmakers to lower a particular federal employee's salary down to $1. Which will not be abused for political reasons at all! After all, didn't Mr. Trump's transition team just get caught trying to make up a blacklist of Energy Department scientists working on climate change? And woe betide you if you actually pursue a voter caging allegation under an Attorney General like Jeff Sessions, or a report of water poisoning near a fracking well under an EPA Administrator like Scott Pruitt, or a lead on some well-connected doctor defrauding Medicare under an HHS Secretary like Tom Price.

Telecom corporation files suit against the FCC's recently-finalized privacy rules -- hoping to be able to gut net neutrality rules in the process. Their angle is clever, I suppose -- that "edge providers" (like Facebook and Netflix) get regulated by the FTC while the FCC regulates internet service providers as a "common carrier," but it sounds like they're arguing that symmetry always equals fairness, which anyone who thinks about it knows isn't true. The good news? The big telecoms' efforts will take time, and if the newly Trumped-up FCC acts in haste -- which they will! -- they'll almost certainly run afoul of the courts, just as Tha Bush Mobb's FCC did. Oh, almost forgot: why are corporations so anti-privacy again? Not because they care about how easy it is for you to buy stuff -- because they care about how easy it could be for them to make money off you buying stuff!

Drew Altman at the New York Times describes "The Health Care Plan Trump Voters Really Want." I don't know why they would get all the say about everything, comprising only 46% of the electorate, but their concerns are, guess what, pretty much like everyone else's -- they hate high premiums and surprise bills, they find health insurance way too complex, and they often admire Medicaid from afar (though they also resent the people who get it). They also generally dislike the ideas Republicans come up with to "replace" the Affordable Care Act (it warmed my heart to hear them call HSAs and the like "not insurance"!), but here's the bad news: they all have faith in Donald Trump to fix it. They'd be much better off having faith in themselves and calling their representatives to tell them what they think, which I'd be happy to help them do.

Finally, the U.S. Postal Service has decided to stop permitting Staples stores to provide USPS services, The article plays up the role of unions in this battle, but the result actually shows what good Americans can accomplish if they stop waiting for politicians to fix stuff. It also suggests, yet again, that privatizing essential government services (and by "essential," in this case, I also mean "constitutionally-mandated") doesn't improve those services, as a May 2016 Inspector General Audit found. So good job, Americans -- and, ah, get ready for when Republicans try to destroy the USPS again.

Action: the REINS Act, and Mr. Trump's Cabinet of Horrors.

Republicans newly flush with power are salivating at the prospect of finally passing the REINS Act, which would require Congress to approve all new rules the Executive branch issues within 70 days of those rules' finalization -- and if Congress simply doesn't act, which you know from long experience is something they're very good at, that kills the regulation. Clean air and clean water rules, net neutrality regulations, protections from financial predators -- all these would die if the REINS Act were to pass, which would leave we-the-people with polluted air and water, a corporate-controlled and hyper-sensationalized internet, and poverty at the hands of banksters and scam artists. I'll take no guff about TEH PRESIDENTZ IZ TEH OUT OF TEH CONTROLZ WITHZ TEH REGULASHUNZ!!!! After all, Congress has already empowered the Executive branch to issue regulations that would (at least nominally!) achieve legislative ends, so they've had their say. When do we get our say? Right now, as Americans for Financial Reform helps you tell your Congressfolk to reject the REINS Act.

Meanwhile, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell your Senators to block corporatists and banksters from serving in Donald Trump's Objectively Pro-Pollution cabinet, Food and Water Watch still helps you do that. Specifically, Food and Water Watch lists the following cabinet nominees as uniquely unfit to serve the public: Rex Tillerson at State, Scott Pruitt at EPA, Rick Perry at Energy, Andrew Puzder at Labor, Ryan Zinke at Interior, and Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. You'll see a lot of things you don't like on their CVs: professional climate change denialism, taking campaign contributions from corporate polluters, conflicts of interest with said polluters, and opposition to basic worker rights like the right not to get crippled by your job. You might even be surprised to learn that Mr. Sessions, perhaps better known for his career-long hostility to civil rights, also went out of his way to protect frackers from Clean Water Act exemptions! It's like a real live Legion of Doom, without the colorful costumes -- and without the reassurance that Superman will and save us. So we'll just have to be Superman.

Around the table: the horrible truth about corporate welfare, and other tales.

At last we're about to find out the true cost of corporate welfare nationwide, thanks to a change in federal accounting standards for states and municipalities. Corporate welfare (where corporations get tax breaks to "create jobs locally," or maybe not!) tends to cost even more than you think -- those good Mississippians who wound up paying a billion dollars more for the privilege of having a Nissan plant in their town have my sympathy (as do the Nissan workers who were somehow paying their taxes right to Nissan!). If we can make 2017 the year corporate welfare wouldn't disappear from the papers and news programs, it won't be a total loss.

In a related note, Alec MacGillis at ProPublica looks at all of Energy Secretary nominee Rick Perry's corporate giveaways while he was Governor of Texas, totaling some $19 billion annually. Surprise, surprise, being a Rick Perry donor was a pretty good way of getting to the head of the feeding trough, and though Texas had so few hands on the handouts, they still screwed up a lot anyway -- Citgo got welfare even though it was clearly going to move to Texas anyway, for example, while Chevron got even more money by promising to build a giant office tower that still ain't there. Then, of course, there's the Texas Energy Center, somehow able to take taxpayer money and create jobs while not actually existing.

One hesitates to recommend articles declaring that either conservatives or liberals might become a "permanent minority" in America, but Daniel Rogers at The Guardian makes a good case that liberals are "(f)aced with an existential threat." Thankfully, he doesn't argue that "getting whites back" means "abandoning blacks" or pandering to racism -- it means "changing the story" so that it's not about Big Gummint but Big Power, and it also means getting local, since that's where change begins. You already know this if you saw Republicans win big at the state level not just in 2010, but in 1994. And, ah, what did both of those years have in common? A weak Democratic power structure that sold out to corporate power and prided itself on its tolerance and its smarts.

Waqas Mirza at AlterNet reminds us that, bad as Donald Trump plans to be on Islamophobia, Democrats ain't been much better. Terrorist watch lists -- which, you recall, were a central feature of Congressional Democrats' "sit-in" after the Orlando shootings -- tend to be comprised of, guess what, mostly Muslims, and local and federal law enforcement infiltration of Muslim communities is hardly something only Republican Administrations do. And for all of Mr. Obama's attempts to be just as tough (but smarter, there's that word again!) on terror as Republicans, how many right-wingers ever applauded his efforts? Maybe it's time to, you know, stop trying to take other nations' resources and then attack them when they don't comply.

Finally, we learn that the costs of solar power production have fallen so much that they might actually be lower than the costs of coal production by 2025, and several nations are already paying very, very little for it. Coal industry flacks, naturally, say that since the wind don't blow and the sun don't shine all day that the cost is actually much higher -- ignoring the fact that the wind blows and the sun shines all over the world and that areas with more sun and wind could supply the other parts of the world with power. That's probably what really upsets coal magnates -- that they'll be left out in the cold, so to speak. And you thought these were our best and brightest, ready to handle the rough-and-tumble of the free market!

Action: saving Medicare, and fighting "Muslim registries."

The Alliance for Retired Americans is sponsoring a national Medicare call-in day today, wherein you may call your Reps and Senators and demand that they reject any effort by their cohorts to privatize or voucherize or otherwise ruin Medicare, and you can certainly use the tools in the upper left-hand corner of this page and call your Reps and Senators and do that. But why not, as the People's Email Network reminds us, play offense? Why not tell your Reps and Senators to expand Medicare so that it includes all Americans? After all, who's in the Medicare pool now? People who need and use health care the most -- seniors, some disabled younger folks, and folks on dialysis. And Medicare actually runs pretty well, much better than the politicians who want to destroy it would have you believe; how much better would it run if it had hundreds of millions of relatively healthy folks sharing the burden? Pretty damn well, I would think. Don't believe the hype that we would "have to raise taxes" to do that, because a lot of people who say that are really trying to protect their preferred slab of corruption from scrutiny, be it bloated defense spending or unearned corporate welfare. They want us to play defense, to beg them to not do things, so let's tell them what to do instead as well. (If you just want the email action tool which helps you demand a Medicare-for-all, single-payer health care system, the People's Email Network provides that.)

Meanwhile, our President-elect has made a lot of noise about creating a "Muslim registry," so our government can go on harassing Muslims without being able to prove they did anything wrong -- or, indeed, without actually stopping anyone from doing anything wrong. Thus Roots Action helps you tell your state legislators and Governors to oppose any attempts by our federal government to create "Muslim registries." Folks who support Mr. Trump's horrible idea actually justify it by citing the forced internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II; how long will it be before they use slavery as a justification for future anti-crime measures, I wonder? Of course, Tha Bush Mobb already tried a "Muslim registry" of foreign men from certain countries, and it didn't stop a damn thing. And one thing I've learned is that while repressive measures tend not to create terrorists from among the oppressed populations (which is another reason the fear-mongering about refugees is such horseshit), these repressive measures tend to create terrorists among better-off populations sympathetic to the oppressed. Why, it's almost like that's the whole idea. And with all the cock-swinging Mr. Trump does, we're very likely going to have another really big terrorist attack in America, one his Administration will use to clamp down on all dissent in ways Tha Bush Mobb didn't even dream of. So let's at least help him make one fewer mistake.

Around the table: items concerning ethics, Social Security, free speech, and working families.

House Republicans withdraw their plan to destroy Office of Congressional Ethics by placing it more under Congressional control -- a plan they'd put together in the dead of the previous night, because putting an office that investigates Congressional ethical misconduct more under the control of the same Congressfolk the office might investigate is such a terrible idea that it wouldn't survive even the least bit of scrutiny. The Times acts like it was Mr. Trump's (rather tepid!) opposition that killed it, but don't you believe it -- good Americans heard about it, swamped their Congressfolk's phone lines, and got them to back down. This will, I hope, be the first of many pimp-slappings.

The incomparable Dave Lindorff describes some of the contours of "The Coming Assault on Social Security." The "liberal" media no doubt has already shouted from the hilltops that ZOMG TEH CBO SEZ TEH TRUST FUNDZ RUNZ OUT IN 2031!!!!, versus 2033, but the CBO (which House Republicans have spent the last couple of years gutting, thanks Obama) seems to be unduly skeptical about how well T-bonds will perform (they've outperformed expectations for years, though maybe a President Trump will "fix" that!), as well as how many folks will be working in the coming years (ditto!). The result? Scare numbers, pure and simple. Remember that folks constantly projecting the failure of pension funds almost never take into account that economies usually grow, often despite our government's best efforts.

Kazakhstan government jails man for three years essentially for calling Vladimir Putin a "fascist" and a "terrorist." The law proscribes inciting "social, national, generic, racial, class, or religious hatred" or insulting "the national honour and dignity of religious feelings of citizens," though Mr. Putin is not, as far as we know, a Kazakh, nor does calling someone a "fascist" or "terrorist" injure someone's "religious feelings." But this is not how free societies operate, and I know that cock-swinger Donald Trump wishes he could do the same thing. In this, I expect his Republican majorities will try to oblige him. But we'll be ready.

Tom Philpott at Mother Jones highlights Labor Secretary nominee Andrew Pudzer's attitude toward worker breaks. Long story short: he thinks "mandatory breaks" prevent him from opening up any more Carl's Jr. franchises in California! "Have you ever been to a fast food restaurant and the employees are sitting and you're wondering, 'Why are they sitting?" he asks. I'd answer: no, I just assumed they were on a break, because the world does not exist to stand at my personal beck and call, as Mr. Pudzer clearly imagines it does for him. And breaks, you know, keep you sharper for when you have to work the rest of the day; funny how these "big thinkers" all imagine we could all just be more efficient if we never rested! This is also not how free societies operate.

French workers win the right to negotiate with their employers for the ability to ignore phone calls and emails from work during off-work hours. The law seems rather like weak tea to me -- corporations apparently won't face penalties for continuing to pester their employees when they're at home trying to make dinner and relate to their families. And to those who would ask shouldn't we be able to solve problems at work whenever we think of a way to solve them? I would answer: no! Get your damn work done during work hours! Why should workers be slaves to their bosses' incompetence?

Seven things *not* to do when Donald Trump takes office.

A great many of us fear the next four or eight years of a Donald Trump Presidency, and for good reason. But this moment in our history also offers a unique clarity: we can't fantasize about Democrats protecting us from the worst that Republicans do, not merely because, well, their record there is pretty poor, but also because they can't now. Only we can protect ourselves, and the sooner we understand that, and practice that, and live that, the better. Hence I offer seven things we should avoid doing when Mr. Trump ascends to the Presidency.

1) Do not bother with media horserace coverage. If the media obsess about something, assume it's not worth your time -- or that they want to distract you from something more important. When they report on fissures within the Republican party, you should assume any such "fissures," or reports about them, are feints, designed to lull you into a false sense of security so that you don't perform your duty to your country by giving your counsel to your elected representatives. Certainly do not bother with media speculation on how much of the coming horror is Mr. Trump's fault and how much is Mr. Pence's, or that of Republicans, or Democrats. If we're all hurting, it doesn't matter -- it only matters what we do about it.

2) Do not accept the narrow choices Our Glorious Elites offer in policy debates. When they talk about government deficits, the only choice they offer is spending cuts; about Social Security, benefit cuts; about Medicare, privatization. But we know better: we can (for example) improve Social Security by lifting the cap on payroll taxes so income over $117,000 can be taxed into the system; we can improve Medicare by letting it negotiate its own drug prices and by hiring more investigators to stamp out fraud -- hell, we could improve Medicare by expanding it to include all Americans (or, if we must compromise, by allowing folks 55 and up to "buy into" Medicare). There are always good alternatives to the moronic ideas Our Glorious Elites peddle -- after all, isn't America the can-do country that always finds a way?

3) Do not support Democrats. Not just because they're weak, and not just because their weakness has enabled the coming horror, but because it's not your job, as a citizen, to "support" a politician -- it's the politician's job to support you. They're supposed to do our will no matter what party they belong to or what ideology they profess to hold, so don't concentrate on getting more politicians in office who might listen to us: just call them and email them and demonstrate in front of their offices until they have no choice but to listen to us. Now, Democrats will ask you to soft-pedal your demands, because it doesn't "help" them appeal to the "center," or something. Ignore them when they do. Seven short years ago, they held the Presidency, a 70-seat majority in the House, and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and they still lectured us about "the art of the possible," rather than widening the palette of the possible, as Republicans always do, no matter their numbers in Congress. Your will is your will, your duty to express it to your representatives is inviolate, and any Democrat who insinuates otherwise deserves defeat.

4) Do not "give Donald Trump a chance." Of course we all want him to do well, despite the multitudinous indications that he won't, but "giving him a chance" is, again, beside the point of a democracy -- our duty is to express our will, and Donald Trump's duty is to execute that will. There is no "waiting and seeing" in the country we love; there is only doing, and people who tell you to "give him a chance" (or "accept the results," or "get over it") really have a different aim in mind: they want you to be silent, because they fear that if you're not silent, you'll derail their little gravy train. They're right to be afraid. And, seriously, Mr. Trump is going to be a terrible President. You wouldn't look at a pile of dung in the middle of the sidewalk and "give it a chance" to magically transform itself into meatloaf, would you?

5) When terrorists inflict a 9.11-sized (or larger!) attack upon us -- and they will, we just don't know where or when -- do not "pull for Trump" the way we all pulled for Mr. Bush. In fact, when they do attack, your solemn and immediate duty as an American citizen is to criticize Donald Trump for failing to keep us safe. And when I say "immediate" I mean "the minute of." He deserves no less, having already strutted around like he knows everything (more than "the generals," even!) while ignoring most of his early intelligence briefings. All this, after 54% of Americans voted for someone else for President! If his cock-swinging arrogance means anything, it means he gets no grading on a curve when it comes to protecting our country. And don't flinch when Our Glorious Elites then say "how dare you attack the President at a time like this!" Criticizing the President, at any time, is one of your inviolable rights as an American, so do not be silent when Our Glorious Elites bid us be silent -- be ten times as loud. For America is stronger than any one President, and criticizing a President does not injure our country. And anyone who thinks it does is a weakling. Make sure you let everyone know that, and make sure you use the word "weakling." They love calling us weaklings, so they deserve some of their own.

6) Do not take slurs on your character lying down. When they say "you hate America" or "you're a traitor" or "you're with the terrorists" or "you want Donald Trump to fail," do not be courteous in response -- be fierce, and don't be afraid to shame those who attack you. Too many liberals think shaming is something only conservatives do, but it's not -- it's something civilized people do, to anyone who's injured their community. And certainly don't worry whether you seem "too angry" or not, because slurs against your character deserve nothing but anger -- and your enemies will attack you for "being angry" even when your voice is perfectly even and low. But when they attack you, remember this: Our Glorious Elites are morally and intellectually bankrupt, and their program of austerity-for-the-people-but-gluttony-for-themselves has led to nothing but disaster all over the world, so they can't win arguments on the merits anymore -- all they can do is lie about our patriotism, our strength, our intelligence, our knowledge, and our commitment. Don't be afraid to give them hell when they do. Because hell is what they deserve.

7) Do not allow Our Glorious Elites to sow doubt inside you. You are right, and they are wrong. It's that simple! If you want our government to provide the good services we've paid for with our taxes and then get out of our way, you are right, and the people who want to cut your services and funnel your hard-earned taxpayer money to their cronies and spy on your every move are wrong. And if you have learned (either from emotionally manipulative people or from post-modern literary theorists) that there is no good and evil, unlearn it now. Our Glorious Elites are evil, and they know we know that, so they're going to try to take everything from us -- our right to dissent, our right to privacy, our right to clean air and clean water, our right to an economy that works for all of us and not just banksters, our right to protection from financial predators, our right not to get the crap kicked out of us by police, and our right to a safe and secure old age. Taking away these things is evil, and the people who would take them away are evil. So the time for navel-gazing is past. The time for civilized people to act is now.

Most of us have now twice experienced eight-year Democrat Administrations that consistently failed us. A far-right Republican Administration, one that ran roughshod over our rights and listened only to its super-rich cronies, followed the first one, and by all indications, a worse far-right Administration will follow the second. That could wind up being 32 years of America vacillating between weak Democrats and malicious Republicans, and we need to break that wheel. But we won't break that wheel by trying to help the damn Democrats. We will only break that wheel by saying no to Our Glorious Elites' attempts to keep us spectators in our democracy, in our country, and by speaking out so powerfully that politicians in both parties will have no choice but to follow us. So when your friends and relatives and neighbors ask you "what do you think will happen?" you should give one answer and one answer only: whatever we make happen. Because that is the stone-cold truth. Either we, the American people, stop Our Glorious Elites from destroying the country we love -- or no one does.

Around the table: "rich people can't be corrupt," and other moronic ideas that in a sane and moral society I wouldn't have to spend any time refuting.

Mike Whitney at Counterpunch explains why the Federal Reserve raising interest rates again is a bad idea. If you've been following Michael Hudson's work over the last few years, the story won't be unfamiliar to you: corporations are borrowing record amounts of money -- mostly for stock buybacks and shareholder payouts, versus, you know, creating jobs and making stuff -- and thus have very little cash-on-hand for when things go bad. You see where this is going: if the Fed raises rates, banksters will make even more money from corporate debt -- while banks that might lend to small businesses that might actually get the economy going again will be even less likely to do so. Heckuva job, Our Glorious Elites!

The incomparable Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone sees a lot of parallels between the WMD-in-Iraq story and the Russians-hacked-the-election story. Chiefly, stories alleging Russian interference in the Presidential election have very little evidence behind them -- and much of that evidence comes from our government! Who, as we know, is very trustworthy about these things, just as they were when they "confirmed" Ahmed Chalabi's allegations about Saddam Hussein! Of course, as you know, accusing Russia of "hacking" the election lets the "liberal" media hide the real hackers -- the state Republican governments that worked overtime to keep black folks from voting.

Of course, despite those efforts at vote suppression, voters in four states approved minimum wage hikes on Election Day, but corporations and their lobbyists are doing their damndest to block the wage hikes. Not just with lawsuits, but with flat-out refusals to enforce the law (that is Gov. LePage's main job in Maine, is it not?) and with, sadly, ballot initiatives that make voter ballot initiatives harder in the future, like the Amendment 71 that Colorado voters passed on November 8. Of course, if you're trying to block the will of the voters, you've just told everyone you can't win arguments on the merits. Let's make sure that means more than it currently does.

Jonathan Chait finds CNBC talking head Larry Kudlow saying rich people can't be corrupt, because they have "no need to steal or engage in corruption." Because, as we know, people only act based on their actual needs, and never on their perceived ones! I'd quarrel with Mr. Kudlow's definition of Mr. Trump's cronies as "successful" people, too -- anyone can be successful at making too much money, because doing so only requires a) sucking up to the right people and b) the complete absence of a moral compass. But Jonas Salk will always be more successful than Donald Trump, because Mr. Salk helped cure polio. (Kudos to Mr. Chait for reminding folks than Ayn Rand, who once called Ronald Reagan "the representative of the worst kind of conservatism," would more likely call Mr. Kudlow's heroes looters than makers.)

Finally, Adam Johnson at FAIR reminds us that the "liberal" media was wrong for reporting that a Drexel professor literally called for "white genocide." Racists use the term "white genocide" to mean -- surprise, surprise! -- a variety of things that are not actually genocide, like multicultural studies and interracial dating. And yet I'm puzzled over how Mr. Ciccariello-Maher's utterance is supposed to be funny in the first place -- it's the kind of thing you might say to a small group of people in your living room who already get you, but it's not the kind of thing you say to the whole world, and though, yes, the racists who whine about "white genocide" should be mocked, and no, the "liberal" media should not let fucking Breitbart be their assignment editor, we all need to think through the whole concept of an appropriate audience before we open our mouths.