Thieves in the Temple.

Action: hurricane relief, and gerrymandering.

In the wake of Hurricane Harvey's devastating path through southern Texas late last week, Moms Rising helps you tell your Congressfolk to properly fund Harvey relief efforts, and the Sierra Club helps you tell your Congressfolk to ensure that any funding package addresses the "long-term community impacts" of the hurricane as well as the short-term ones. Also, CREDO helps you tell the Trump Administration to reverse its decision to revoke the Obama-era Federal Flood Risk Management Standard, which would have helped rebuilding localities better prepare for the future weather events -- and which would also, as Rep. Curbelo (R-FL) sagely pointed out this week, have saved the taxpayer money, since having to rebuild infrastructure again and again because you didn't adhere to strict standards the first time tends to cost money. Of course, the Trump Administration, like most of Our Glorious Elites, only sees the short term -- specifically, the short term in which executives suck all the money out of a project and then escape before it goes bad. But that's no reason for us to lie back and take it.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania residents, take note: HB 722, which would curb partisan gerrymandering of Pennsylvania's state and Congressional legislative districts by taking the matter out of the legislature's hands and putting it in the hands of a bipartisan redistricting commission, now has nearly 100 co-sponsors (out of 203 total Assemblyfolk!) -- but the chair of the House State Government Committee, the notorious Daryl Metcalfe (R-12), won't hold hearings on the bill, and has even gone so far as to say "I don't hear from a lot of people" about the issue, which more likely means "I don't hear from a lot of my big donors" about it. And of course he wouldn't! Big donors don't want the system to work any better for good Pennsylvanians, because then the gravy train might be gone. Hence Common Cause reminds us that Mr. Metcalfe's number in Harrisburg is 1.717.783.1707, and his number in Cranberry is 1.724.772.3110, and so you may call him and tell him to schedule a hearing on HB 722. You may remind him that HB 722 counts at least 14 members of his own caucus as co-sponsors.

Around the table: contains *Game of Thrones* spoilers! (No, really.)

President Trump's decision to rescind Obama-era flood standards for federally-funded infrastructure projects is all in the news now that Houston's going to need a lot of infrastructure rebuilt, but one critic kinda blames President Obama for the mess, saying that if Mr. Obama had described his flood initiative as "a sensible taxpayer-protecting land-use measure" rather than a climate change regulation, it might still be in effect. I, too, would rather describe things simply than pretend I'm smarter than everyone else like elite Democrats do, but, ah, when is it going to start being Mr. Trump's fault that he's going after everything that says "climate change" on it?

After getting criticized on Fox and Friends, of all places, for failing to staff his government in advance of a Category 4 hurricane, President Trump takes to Twitter (of course) to tell critics his aim is to "reduce size of government." Which, as you know, is synonymous with reduce the people's ability to realize their will, since our government belongs to us. Meanwhile, Trump votaries still believe his refusal to staff our government is all the Democrats' fault, even though Democrats literally cannot stop any Trump nominees without Republican help.

Defense Secretary Mattis will allow transgendered soldiers to continue serving in our military until he can submit a plan describing how he'll enforce the President's proposed transgendered ban, which he has a little less than six months to do. And boy is his statement drenched with bureaucrat-talk, which may tempt you to hope he could be stalling, but remember: you should regard any reported infighting between Republicans as an attempt to distract you from your agenda. Besides, this whole matter could well be decided in court before then.

John Baer at the Philadelphia Daily News wonders if Rep. Lou Barletta can "make history" by upsetting Sen. Bob Casey in the 2018 U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania. Mr. Baer says it's possible, but I say it's probable -- even before he was a Trumphole, Mr. Barletta made his name bashing immigrants, so he's got the edge in voter enthusiasm. Mr. Casey could help himself, I suppose, by running a thousand ads saying Lou Barletta tried to take away your health care -- and if Mr. Barletta whines about it, then run a thousand ads saying Lou Barletta whines in the face of accurate description of his actions. Well, make it snappier, I suppose.

Finally, maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I think this six-paragraph complaint about the Jon Snow/Danaerys Targaryen sex scene from the Game of Thrones season finale is less than useless. "I didn’t spend countless hours watching and rewatching episodes of Game of Thrones to suffer through this!" the author complains, as if we should care -- and as if sex scenes can never have any dramatic function whatsoever. Think the episode might have intercut the sex scene with the truth about Jon's birth (and the lie that started the Baratheon rebellion) for a reason? Or could it be that Jon and Dany shouldn't be together, and that they can both sense it even as they're getting it on? Too much sex on TV is merely celebratory, which, frankly, conditions us to be as sex-obsessed as our President.

Action: drug pricing, and corporate mergers.

California residents, take note: SB 17 would help curb astronomical drug prices by forcing big pharma corporations to notify drug purchasers of any massive drug price hikes or expensive new drugs they're contemplating. SB 17 would also force big pharma corporations to justify the methods they use to set drug prices, and would force health insurance corporations to tell state regulators how much they're spending on drugs. You'd think a liberal state like California could have more nice things, but the health care industry seems to have a death grip on state legislators, as evidenced by the recent scuttling of an Assembly vote on a single-payer health insurance bill (by the Assembly Speaker, who is supposedly a single-payer supporter!), and last year the industry helped kill a bill rather similar to SB 17. But they don't have to worry -- after all, it's not like price-gouging on drugs like Daraprim and EpiPen have been all over the news or anything! CALPIRG helps you tell your California state legislator to help rein in outrageous drug prices by supporting SB 17.

Meanwhile, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell the Department of Justice to prevent the proposed AT&T/Time Warner merger, then CREDO still helps you do that. As you know, Comcast withdrew its bid to buy Time Warner's cable operation in 2015, after massive public pressure, but Charter succeeded in buying that operation the following year; now AT&T wants to buy the rest of Time Warner, which includes Warner Brothers, HBO, CNN, and DC Comics. As far as I'm concerned, the argument should really stop at no corporation should ever own another corporation, period, and I suppose professional pedants would tell me that AT&T provides a service and Time Warner provides entertainment so there's no problem! But of course they're both media corporations, and letting AT&T buy Time Warner would give it a longer reach into our wallets, and they'll use their greater power to buy up even more properties. Did I mention that AT&T has enthusiastically helped our government spy on customers? Did I mention that AT&T has announced it'll prioritize its own content if the FCC rolls back net neutrality rules?

Action: drug pricing, and national monuments.

H.R. 3536/S. 1681 -- a Peter DeFazio (D-OR) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) production, respectively -- would prevent our government from funding new drug development with an entity until said entity agrees to sell whatever drugs they develop with our money at a fair price to Americans. You'd think that'd be common sense, but it's not, at least not anymore -- nowadays our politicians love funneling taxpayer money, our money, to their corporate cronies and then refusing to perform any oversight on their cronies' activities because TEH BIG GUMMINT!!!!! Of course, if you think of TEH BIG GUMMINT!!!!! as our government, which is supposed to work on our behalf, then you won't be as susceptible to arguments favoring corporate welfare. I suppose the will then tell us we'll never be able to develop a good drug again unless we let corporations gouge us, but that's the kind of rhetorical hostage situation that you, as a patriotic American, would find abhorrent. CREDO helps you tell your Congressfolk to support fairer drug pricing with taxpayer-funded drugs by supporting H.R. 3536/S. 1681.

Meanwhile, the Department of the Interior has finished its "review" of our national monuments, and you'll be pleased to know that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has recommended that we not get rid of any of the ones reviewed. Strangely, however, he hasn't just come out and said which monuments he's proposed to reduce, though pretty much everyone thinks the two giant Utah monuments -- the Grand Staircase and Bears Ears monuments -- are high on the list. Now the Trump Administration may not have legal standing to reduce monuments (even though the President's authority to designate monuments comes from the Antiquities Act), but many in this reactionary Congress have spoken of the "need" to have more Congressional input into the monument-designating process, and what's to stop them from trying to repeal or gut the Antiquities Act, or grant the President the authority to get rid of monuments? Us, that's what -- the only thing that has ever stopped Congress from doing evil. So the Sierra Club helps you tell your Congressfolk to block the Trump Administration attack on public lands.

Around the table: the cabal of lawlessness decries lawlessness, and other sad ironies.

Attorney General Sessions announces that Trump Administration will lift limits on military equipment going to local police departments. It is a bit rich that Mr. Sessions grandstands about "not allow(ing) criminal activity, violence and lawlessness to become the new normal," given that he works for a man who enables violence and clearly thinks law and order is only for little people. Suggesting police brutality is a "superficial concern" is a bit rich, too, when at least one out of every 10 Americans worry that their next police contact will be their last.

You won't be surprised to learn that ProPublica and the Texas Tribune told us almost a year and a half ago that Houston would be "a sitting duck for the next hurricane." Very often, local officials in Texas say it's our federal government's job to fix the problem -- a statement with which I wouldn't necessarily disagree, particularly given the Houston Ship Channel's importance to our economy, but also a statement which sounds odd coming from politicians who've long been ideologically predisposed to cripple the governments for which they work.

Dean Baker at TruthOut performs an enormous public service by instructing us that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is a pro-growth agency. Right-wingers have drummed it into our heads that Big Gummint always strangles economic growth in its crib, but if the CFPB's new forced arbitration ban "costs" banksters $1 billion annually, that billion dollars comes from ordinary consumers like you and I, and that's not just a cost to us, but to the economy, which could use the extra $1 billion in stimulus. Also, the money banksters spend concocting ways to rip consumers off (rather than ways to provide better services than their competitors) comprises a drag on economic growth.

Illinois becomes the 10th American state (that was quick!) to pass an automatic voter registration law. Getting registered to vote whenever you renew a driver's license or a state ID should counter the nefarious effects of the Interstate Crosscheck database somewhat, but most folks aren't going to think to get new IDs done on Election Day, or have time to do it once they find out they've been mysteriously "de-registered" -- or, ah, have the ability to get to a DMV in a state that's closed as many of them as it can get away with!. Also, very few red or swing states have implemented automatic voter registration. I suspect the best solution to Interstate Crosscheck is a very good lawsuit striking it down as a violation of a citizen's due process rights.

Finally, the incomparable Matt Taibbi blames the media for creating "A World Dumb Enough for Trump." His article is a good tonic if you've been at all impressed with the "liberal" media's tough-on-the-surface coverage of Mr. Trump's Presidency -- after all, "(t)he Trump presidency is like a diabolical combination of every schlock eyeball-grabbing formula the networks have ever deployed," the creation of media that constantly push "(b)ig headlines, cartoonish morality, scary criminals at home and foreign menaces abroad" because "they all sell." Amen.

Action: fighting banksters and "liberal" media snow jobs.

Americans for Financial Reform helps you tell your Senators to protect your right to day in court against your bank by rejecting H.J.Res. 111. What would H.J. Res. 111 do? It would nullify the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's recent rule banning forced arbitration clauses in contracts between consumers and banks. These clauses keep you out of court and force you to go to arbitration with your bank, and arbitrators are (as the Economic Policy Institute reminded us recently) far, far more likely to rule in the bank's favor than in yours. So when some corporate hack tells you that folks who win arbitration cases with their banks win a lot more money than folks do in class action lawsuits, just remember that you have less than a 1 in 10 chance of winning that arbitration case to begin with -- which means you're very likely to win zero dollars. Also, your bank can file a counterclaim, which they'll win more than 9 times out of 10 -- and then you'll have to pay them thousands of dollars on average. Does any of that sound like justice? No, it does not. So tell your Senators to stop serving banksters and start serving their constituents again by rejecting H.J. Res. 111.

Meanwhile, the New York Times has lately said that "the United States is not directly involved" in the Saudi Arabia/Yemen war that's causing "the world's largest humanitarian crisis," one which won't get better "unless the war ends." But a year ago, the Times told us, in a headline no less, that "Support for Saudi Arabia Gives U.S. Direct Role in Yemen Conflict." And, as The Intercept informed us last month, our government has provided Saudi planes with twice as much fuel since October, and those planes ain't carrying tourists. Moreover, the American military advisors who work directly on the Saudi bombing campaign now work in Riyadh, ostensibly, I suppose, so we can better "advise" the Saudis not to kill so many Yemeni civilians. Even if that were working, that sure seems to comprise "direct involvement" in the war that's starving good Yemeni citizens and punishing the Houthi rebels are some of the world's best ISIS-fighters, all to preserve some obscure power-sharing arrangement that collapsed in 2009. If we can't stop this war right now, but let's at least encourage our paper of record to get the record straight, as Just Foreign Policy and MoveOn help you do.

Around the table: how to deal with Nazi wannabes, and other lessons.

Laurie Marhoefer at The Conversation says "put(ting) (our) bodies on the line in counterdemonstrations" against Nazi wannabes plays into fascist hands, because they're trying to provoke us into fighting in the streets, and that usually winds up giving power to right-wingers in order to stem the tide of "leftist violence." She also says we'd be better off holding "joyful" "counterevent(s)" at some distance away from the Nazi wannabes, but I'd go one better: we should start holding "joyful protests" about single-payer health care, raising taxes on the rich, and hiking the minimum wage, so that these whites-don't-control-everything-anymore-so-sad losers get exactly the amount of attention they deserve. The times demand we play offense, not defense.

Speaking of playing offense, Branko Marcetic at In These Times reminds us that we shouldn't go easy on potential Democratic Presidential candidates like California Sen. Kamala Harris -- as too many "liberal" media types want us to do! -- but rather keep criticizing and pressuring them. Mr. Marcetic describes civil rights leaders who pressured politicians and won, as well as more contemporary activists who pressured Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and won. Of course, I'd go one better here, too, and say that establishment Democratic support of Ms. Harris means she'll lose to Donald Trump just the rest of them. People aren't tired of "partisanship" -- they're tired of politicians who don't stand for anything and don't stand up to anything.

Sam Pizzicati at Inequality.org writes about the massive corporate welfare handout the state of Wisconsin is prepared to give to Foxconn -- one that would easily amount to $500,000 in taxpayer money for every job Foxconn creates in Wisconsin, and would more likely be $1 million per job created. For jobs that might average a little over $50,000 annually in pay, and will probably be much lower! Plus Foxconn will get to ignore state wetlands regulations when they build their new plant! Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is the King of Corporate Welfare Handouts, but this might well be his masterpiece.

Ho hum, President Trump's new sanctions against the government of Venezuela specifically exempt Citgo, the U.S. subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil corporation -- and some of his former aides just so happen to work for Citgo! And Citgo just so happened to donate six figures to the Trump inaugural celebration. Isn't this the kind of corruption the Founders wanted us to avoid?

Fran Korten at Yes! offers "three modest, winnable first steps" toward getting single-payer, universal health insurance in America. They're all good ideas, of course -- drug price controls, a public health insurance option, lowering the Medicare eligibility age to 55 or 60 -- as long as they're not accompanied by SHUTUP YOU SINGLE PAYER PEEPULZ YOU'RE MAKING IT TEH HARDER WITH ALL YOUR DEMANDZ!!!!! I mean, people say that to you when they know you're right, but it's still damn irritating.

Finally, Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich and Colorado Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper have apparently contemplated running on a "unity ticket" in 2020. A right-winger heading up a ticket with a centrist? Gosh, who does that leave out of "unity"? And dig the "veteran operative" saying it would be "(s)omething big and historic" that would "do() away with this hyper-partisanship on both sides." Republicans burn everything down and Democrats enable them; yeah, that's some "hyper-partisanship," there. No, this "unity ticket" would lose to Donald Trump just as easily as Mr. Hickenlooper would do on his own -- because it has nothing to do with reality as regular Americans like us experience it.

Around the table: featuring a busy President, war-hungry media, a depleted EPA, and evangelical racists.

President Trump pardons former Maricopa County (AZ) Sheriff/infamous racist Joe Arpaio, convicted of ignoring a judge's order to stop detaining Latinos merely on suspicion of having immigrated to America illegally. But you know, this is the kind of thing that won't hurt Mr. Trump or his fellow Republicans at the polls, as long as Democrats keep trotting out these little Ossoffs who stand for nothing and stand up to nothing. 2018 won't be the year the "sane" politicians strike back; it'll be another year for "shoot from the hip" outsiders to clean up, and weakling establishment Democrats will realize this too late, if at all.

President Trump prepares to give formal instructions to the Department of Defense in re his plan to ban transgendered folks from serving our country in the military. But, in what he may imagine to be a compromise, he'll leave it up to the military to decide whether to expel transgendered folks based on how readily they'll be able to fight wars or complete lengthy missions, which sure sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen. Again, heckuva job, establishment Democrats who counted on Donald Trump to lose the Presidency all by himself!

FAIR finds too many "liberal" media types still getting all hot and bothered about how "Presidential" Mr. Trump was when announcing his expansion of the Afghanistan war. It isn't as bad as it was the last time Mr. Trump dropped some bombs (or didn't yell at the top of his lungs on TV!), but any amount of enthusiasm over war-making is too much -- a lot of folks who make war for a living will tell you that, too! -- and slamming the "liberal" media for forgetting all about Mr. Trump's enthusiasm about Afghanistan mineral resources is of course entirely appropriate.

Eric Katz at Government Executive reports that the EPA has lost about half of its criminal investigators over the last decade. Folks who constantly shout about law-and-order should be quite upset; if they're not, I guess that means they don't think pollution is really a crime -- or they're buying into New Democrat bullshit about the technology for this kind of crime detection being so much better than it used to be. Call me old-fashioned, but I think people are the best "technology" for crime-fighting.

On that note, we learn that Google's Artificial Intelligence (or AI) project aimed at curbing toxic online commentary isn't very good at what it tries to do. To the degree that we should be doing this, why in the world aren't we hiring people to do it? People are, after all, a lot more subtle than the subtlest computer, and the number of people who alienate everyone around them is actually very small. Maybe they use AI because they don't have to pay AI. But if you want nice things, you have to pay workers to maintain them.

Finally, Randall Balmer at the Los Angeles Times instructs us that "Under Trump, Evangelicals Show Their True Racist Colors." His business roundtables have abandoned him in Charlottesville's wake, but his big-name evangelical supporters haven't, except for the one Clinton/Obama voter who had one foot out the door anyway. Good, also, to be reminded that racism, not abortion, was the original driving force behind right-wing evangelism -- and a lot of these old school evangelicals are still with us. Maybe we could isolate their supporters from them?

Action: three alerts about clean air and clean water.

If you've missed previous opportunities to tell your Pennsylvania House Rep to reject HB 542, which has mutated from a bill about internet sales into a bill that would gut clean air and clean water protections in the Commonwealth, then the Sierra Club still helps you do that. HB 542 would start privatizing the entire gas and oil permitting process -- in spite of the fact that you generally don't want unaccountable private corporations regulating matters pertaining to clean air and clean water -- and would also let the state legislature veto clean air and clean water regulations issued by the state Department of Environmental Protection (or DEP), for those times when the legislature can't get its act together enough to simply pass laws dirtying our air and water, I guess. Don't legislators work for people? And don't people breathe air and use water? And aren't people the real job creators anyway? Without us, no one could sell a damn thing. Not even fuel!

Meanwhile, the EPA, which has shown a stunning reluctance to do any work on the American people's behalf since President Trump took over and put pro-pollution politician Scott Pruitt in charge, skirted yet another responsibility to government's owners last month, by failing to respond to the state of Maryland's petition that the EPA require upwind power plants to actually run the already-installed pollution-controlling equipment during the summer season. Why summer? Because summer is premium smog season, that's why -- heat and sunlight are like steroids to all the pollutants power plants put in the air, which means more asthma and more heart disease for us poor schmucks who don't run fossil fuel-fired power plants. (Well, fossil fuel CEOs also breathe air, as far as I know, but they sure act like they don't.) Hence the Environmental Defense Fund helps you tell the EPA to do its job and make power plants use their pollution-control equipment when people need it the most.

Finally, the Trump Administration still plans to roll back automobile fuel efficiency standards, because what is more popular than making people pay more for gas? That is, after all, the most obvious result of freezing fuel efficiency standards between 2021 and 2025 (instead of raising them every year, as our government is currently mandated to do). Of course, the worse result -- more pollution in our air -- may not be as obvious to us as the hit to our pocketbooks, but it's just as real. Why would the Trump Administration do such a thing? Besides, you know, we won fuck Obama? Because the Trump Administration believes big auto executives and big fossil fuel executives have more rights than the rest of us. But if you could "earn" more rights because you make more money, then they're not really rights, are they? The Sierra Club helps you tell the Trump Administration to keep fuel efficiency standards right were they are, so good Americans can breathe easier and save more at the pump.

Around the table: from another anti-free speech bill to another slew of corporate welfare lies.

Pennsylvania legislators introduce a bill, SB 754, which could force protestors to pay "public safety response costs incurred by a State agency or political subdivision as a result of the State agency’s or political subdivision’s response to a demonstration if, in connection with the demonstration, the person is convicted of a felony or misdemeanor offense." In other words, if you were convicted of something at a protest, the state could, under this bill, put you on the hook for anything. Call me old-fashioned, but I think you should only be punished for the crimes you actually commit. You'd think "law and order" politicians would feel the same, but they don't -- they're just looking for ways of stopping protestors, which usually means they've lost the argument on the merits.

U.S. District Court judge strikes down the latest version of Texas's Voter ID law, saying it still discriminates against minority voters. Who will be the first right-winger to say that the District Judge should have recused herself because she's a minority voter herself? We are so sick, immoral, and decadent that I'm pretty sure it won't be some right-wing talk show host who needs the attention. It might even be more likely to be the President of the United States.

Now this is good news: at least half a dozen sitting House or Senate Democrats are getting primary challenges from staunch single-payer advocates. The price of being noncommittal or evasive at citizen town halls, apparently, is a primary challenge from your left. It won't work exactly like the Tea Party challenges of 2010 did, though, because those challengers got a lot of support from corporate front groups. Still, it's better than staying hostage to weak Democrats. Yes, even if Donald Trump is President.

Bryan Menegus at Gizmodo says "The Right is Faling for Its Own Fake Antifa Accounts" -- you know, by regurgitating the hateful stuff "antifa activists" supposedly say on social media, without noting that these "antifa activists" are actually right-wing trolls in disguise -- but I submit that they're not, in fact, "falling for" anything, that they in fact mean to foment chaos and confusion, so that the rest of us talk about the chaos, rather than how we'd solve real-world problems. (See also Wonkette's reporting on this topic.)

Finally, Paul Ryan conducts a televised townhall in his home district where he says a bunch of ridiculous crap about taxes. He goes on and on about the corporate tax rate that virtually no corporations pay, since they get so many welfare handouts from Congress, and he goes on and on about "taxing our job creators" when these "job creators," who would never create a job if they didn't absolutely have to, are making tons of profits these days. And I don't even credit him for having a town hall, since that's his job. I'd say CNN's cameras were probably there to protect him, but they might also have been there to make sure he didn't run out.

Action: Afghanistan, and GMO food.

President Trump's votaries won't regard his plan to increase American forces in Afghanistan as Dear Leader transforming into Just Another Politician, but the rest of us should remember how "nation-building" began in the first place -- war is unpopular enough that Congress hasn't formally declared one since FDR, and Tha Bush Mobb correctly sussed out that A War to Hunt Terrorists wouldn't be enough to keep America voting Republican, even after 9.11. Tha Bush Mobb also correctly sussed out that deadlines for withdrawal blunted some of the criticism they deserved, a luxury Mr. Trump now won't have with his declaration that his new plan is "results-based," whatever those results would be. We should also remember how impressed Mr. Trump has been lately with all the rare earth metals one can find in Afghanistan. Anyway, Peace Action helps you tell your Congressfolk to repeal the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force (or AUMF) that three Presidents have now abused to start or ramp up wars all over the planet without getting proper, Constitutional authorization from Congress.

Meanwhile, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, has issued a 120-day ban on a Monsanto pesticide called Dicamba, due to the hundreds of complaints from state farmers about Dicamba drifting into neighboring fields and harming crops. Dicamba is yet another Monsanto pesticide designed to kill weeds on its own crops they've genetically-engineered to withstand it, which of course will ultimately have the effect of killing all the crops in the field but Monsanto's -- and forcing farmers to switch to Monsanto's GMO seed or go out of business! Can anyone say antitrust violation? I mean, seriously, this is out of a dystopian sci-fi novel. And I almost forgot to mention that Dicamba stays in the soil for a year, can find its way to nearby water sources, and thus harm fish as well. Gov. Hutchinson has done the honorable thing and listened to his constituents in this matter, but now he must ban the stuff forever and for always, so Avaaz helps you tell Gov. Hutchinson to keep Dicamba out of Arkansas's fields, and thus help ensure food safety for good Arkansans and their descendents.

Around the table: in which fools grapple with white supremacy, to unsurprising results.

Treasury Secretary's wife brags about flight on government plane and all the big-name fashion brands she wore on that plane -- then unloads on one of her critics thusly: "Have you given more to the economy than me and my husband? Either as an individual earner in taxes OR in self sacrifice to your country? I’m pretty sure we paid more taxes toward our day ‘trip’ than you did. Pretty sure the amount we sacrifice per year is a lot more than you’d be willing to sacrifice if the choice was yours." Well, much is required from those to whom much is given! We'll always have people who think they're better than us; our task, as civilized people, is to contain their evil.

Notorious big pharma executive Martin Shkreli has been buying up internet domains with the same names as some of his critics (mayakosoff.com, carolinemoss.com, etc) so he can better mock them. I used to tell people that Michael Jackson's Neverland was a great argument for the 91% tax bracket, but of course I never dreamed of the Pharma Bro back then. How is buying up websites so you can mock journalists an example of the genius of the free market? Hell, how is jacking up the price of a life-saving HIV drug 5000%?

Long-time seller of white supremacist merchandise decides to shut down his store and find "spiritual peace" after making the front page of the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer. So how quickly did he get from ZOMG FRONT PAGE ABOVE TEH FOLD OF TEH INQUIRER WE HAVE ARRIVEDZ!!!!! to all my neighbors have stopped talking to me? Quicker, I bet, than he gets from TEH BOTH SIDEZ ARE TO BLAMEZ!!!! to I was wrong and I have no excuses.

Vice President Pence says we shouldn't take down Confederate monuments, but just build more monuments that "celebrate the progress that we’ve made since that history." How did Mike Pence ever make it as a right-wing talker? Because let's-keep-the-racist-monuments-and-then-make-new-better-monuments is about as far from straight talk as you can get; it's a little like King Solomon suddenly splitting the baby in half. And I bet historians who spend most of their time making sense of medieval balance sheets also roll their eyes. (Also, too: how is anti-racism "some contemporary political cause"?)

Finally, the Department of Justice got a warrant demanding extensive information on everyone who visited an anti-Trump website hosted by Dreamhost, but now the DOJ has amended its warrant request so that it doesn't look like a fishing expedition. Frankly, trying to convict 200 protestors of "felony rioting" is still a damn fishing expedition, but still, a little sunlight can go a long way.

Action: Social Security, and free speech.

In the middle of all this Trump-caused chaos comes H.R. 3423, the Social Security Commission Act, which would create yet another commission purportedly aiming to keeping Social Security "solvent." But H.R. 3423 mandates that Congress consider any bill coughed up by this Commission under "expedited rules," meaning full House and Senate votes less than a month after the bill's introduction and, of course, no amendments. Anyone else see a vehicle to pass an unpopular bill that would cut the benefits we've worked for and fought for? Particularly given that the 13-member Commission would, at least until 2020, have a Republican majority? I guess none of that matters to the bill's main sponsor, Rep. Delaney (D-MD); all that matters is that the bill has a "bipartisan" sheen, with two sponsors from each party in the House. Social Security Works helps you tell your Congressfolk to reject any back-door attempt to cut Social Security benefits, which means rejecting H.R. 3423.

Meanwhile, the legislature of North Carolina seemed well on its way to passing a bill that would exonerate any person who accidentally (or, more likely, "accidentally") drove into protestors -- before, of course, that incident where a Nazi wannabe actually did drive a car into protestors, killing one person and injuring 19 more. Of course, North Carolina ain't the only state that's mulled such legislation this year (five others have done so, though none came close to passing a bill) and maybe your state legislature is contemplating how unpopular our government is and how they can best curtail your free speech without just arresting people and putting them in jail. So Demand Progress helps you tell your state legislators to reject any efforts to grant drivers immunity when they drive into protestors. The North Carolina Senate, by the way, has lately been averse to actually considering the bill, but that could just be a possum game on their part. So let's not be caught sleeping.

Action: clean air, and juvenile fees.

H.R. 806, the so-called Ozone Standards Implementation Act, would (as you might guess) implement the EPA's 2015 ozone standards badly, first by delaying their implementation for years, and then by requiring fewer reviews of ozone pollutants and requiring the EPA to "obtain advice from its scientific advisory committee" before moving further with the standards. If that last item sounds odd to you, remember that the Trump Administration is packing the EPA's scientific advisory committee with fossil fuel cronies as we speak; guess what "advice" they'll give about implementing ozone standards? H.R. 806 passed the House on a near-party line vote (though more Republicans voted nay than Democrats voted yea); now it heads to the Senate, where you might be able to peel off Susan Collins if she thinks she'll be the only one, and you might be able to peel off Dean Heller if he's feeling vulnerable ,and you might be able to peel off John McCain if he's pissed off. Still, duty is duty, so Penn Environment helps you tell your Senators to protect clean air by rejecting H.R. 806.

Meanwhile, the California state legislature is mulling SB 190, which would end the state's practice of charging families administrative fees when they have children in the state's juvenile system. Turns out these fees can be quite onerous, particularly in a nation where almost half of us would have serious trouble scraping up $400 in case of an emergency, and some of these fees even violate federal law. And just as money bail effectively functions as an endless state detention system for poor folks who can't afford the bail, juvenile fees effectively keep children in that system long after it might actually have helped them, and thus also constitutes a serious abridgment of their freedoms. If you're tempted to say well don't get in trouble, then!, please do two things: 1) slap yourself, and 2) recall all the times in your own childhood you acted the fool, and all the times your friends' children acted the fool and you didn't judge them. Moms Rising helps you tell the California state legislature to protect working families from onerous state fees and pass SB 190.

Around the table: in which we contemplate tried-and-true methods of getting politicians to do our will.

John O'Day at FAIR finds that the "liberal" media have reduced net neutrality to a shallow "mogul vs. mogul" kind of coverage, but of course there are reasons for that. Google vs. Comcast, or Facebook vs. Verizon, maps pretty easily onto the kind of horserace/sports match coverage the "liberal" media prefers anyway, and it also just so happens to map on to right-wing complaints about net neutrality, i.e., that they protect Google and Facebook at the expense of Comcast and Verizon. Of course, I really don't care if they do or not -- I only care that net neutrality protects people from corporate abuse. (Great article, though -- read down to the part where he reminds us that the internet didn't "flourish" under "less regulation" because the phone lines over which consumers originally surfed the internet were, by law, very heavily regulated.)

From Fran Quigley at TruthOut we learn how Nevada unions were "the driving force" behind that state's new insulin price transparency law. They didn't listen to "data-driven consultants," but did it the old-fashioned way: by going door-to-door, making thousands of phone calls to their legislators, and finding folks with unique stories to tell about how the insulin-pricing bill would help them or their loved ones (or, ah, would have helped them or their loved ones). They also supported (and helped elect) actual liberal politicians, rather than the faux-liberals to which national Democrats constantly hold us hostage. (Seriously, can you see Jon Frickin' Ossoff sponsoring a drug price transparency bill in the House? No, you cannot.)

Matt Gertz at Media Matters reminds us that "There Will Be No Pivot" into sanity from President Trump, no matter how much the "liberal" media might want it. With extraordinary generosity and restraint, Mr. Gertz suggests that reporters are susceptible to the "pivot" or "reset" narrative because they're just as stressed out about living in Trumpland as the rest of us, and also because reporters are intuitively "bias(ed)" toward finding "new" stories, and Donald Trump acting like a sane person sure would be a new story. But there's some horserace here, too -- if the "liberal" media merely tabulated Mr. Trump's insanity non-stop, how could they then build him up so there's a race in 2020? (In reality, of course, if Democrats nominate yet another I'm-sane-he's-an-ogre candidate, there'll be a race, all right, and Democrats will lose it.)

Unions turn in over 300,000 signatures (three times the required amount!) in an effort to get Missouri's new "right-to-work" law overturned by a public referendum in 2018. But ho hum, "(w)hile unions are bankrolling the anti-right-to-work campaign, it’s unclear who is paying for the other side" -- apparently the "right-to-work" law's supporters don't want to be known, for some reason. I'm also a bit unclear about why the vote has to wait until 2018; are they afraid folks won't turn out in an "off-year"? They'd be wrong about that: Ohio voters rejected their legislature's anti-public unions law by a 3-2 margin in 2011.

You've no doubt heard that President Trump has had to dissolve two business advisory councils because of all the business leaders who left them after his awful Charlottesville remarks, but that his evangelical advisory council somehow remained intact in its wake. Well, President Trump's evangelical advisory council finally has its first defection -- in a former Clinton/Obama voter who apparently decided to leave well before Charlottesville. And dig Eric Metataxas's rubbish about not abandoning people (like the President, apparently) when they're down! Mr. Metataxas has the relationship exactly wrong: the President doesn't abandon us when we're down, but we have no such responsibility to him, as he's supposed to serve us.

Finally, President Trump draws the internet's ire for saying that our great nation needs to "heel" our divisions. Gosh, Freudian slip much? He wishes he could bring the American people to heel. As long as we draw breath, he never will.

Action: concerning clean water, immigration, and the "liberal" media.

Food and Water Watch helps you tell the city of Flint, MI to stop foreclosing on good folks because of water bill delinquency. You remember Flint as the city where folks can't drink their water anymore, so taking away someone's house because they can't pay their water bill when you fucked up their water is the very height of hypocrisy. In fact, I presume there's a breach-of-contract lawsuit in there somewhere -- one we might even use to take down the whole anti-democratic concept of an "emergency manager." It was Flint's unelected "emergency manager," as you recall, who decided to "save money" by switching Flint from relatively clean Detroit water to filthy and polluted Flint River water -- and who attempted to alleviate that pollution by putting chemicals in the Flint River that just so happened to corrode the lead off Flint's water pipes! And Flint residents still pay out the wazoo for dirty water -- and state law allows cities to foreclose on homes for non-payment of water bills. Maybe they should concentrate more on fixing Flint's pipes, which Congress gave them $100 million to do?

Meanwhile, President Trump is mulling ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (or DACA) program, which offers some protection from deportation to immigrants who arrived here as children and who visibly contribute something to society. Not prioritizing deporting young folks who had nothing to do with the decision to come to America but who contribute to our society nonetheless sounds like a no-brainer -- so you know what that means! It means our President, who can't get a decent piece of legislation passed by a Republican-held Congress who've maneuvered the Democratic opposition into powerlessness, can do nothing but stoke the rage of his far-right base with executive orders -- which, hey, may be all he needs to do to get re-elected, particularly if Democrats force another "someone who can win" Presidential nominee down our throats! -- and that means he's likely to send good kids off to countries they don't remember. Hence the Friends Committee on National Legislation helps you tell your Congressfolk to act to keep these young folks safe, while Moms Rising helps you write a letter-to-the-editor about the importance of keeping the DACA program around. The rage-addled will disagree, but they don't get all the say in America.

Finally, FAIR helps you tell the New York Times to correct its absurd claim that the United States tried to help Honduran President Zelaya return to power after the military coup that toppled him in 2009. If you recall any part of that sordid tale -- where our State Department hesitated to call it a coup even though our own Ambassador to Honduras (who would know, ya think?) called it a coup, because calling it a coup might have necessitated action on our part ranging from cutting off aid to Honduras to, you know, actually helping the Zelaya government out -- then you know that's a very odd thing for our paper of record to say, even as it's reporting generally on how badly we've meddled in the affairs of Latin American countries for decades on end. The Honduras coup is, incidentally, why some liberals call Hillary Clinton a murderer -- while I don't call someone a murderer until they've actually murdered someone, the murder rate in Honduras (particularly the murder rate of activists!) has gone way, way up since the coup, and Mrs. Clinton surely enabled the new Honduran government as Secretary of State. That also helps explain why she's not President now, by the way.

Around the table: in which we are reminded that the work of defending free speech is very hard.

The ACLU, under considerable pressure from misguided liberals, announces it will scrutinize which hate groups it represents a bit differently than it has in the past, its executive director giving the wish to protest with "loaded firearms" as an example. But I find it far too easy, frankly, to defend protesting with loaded firearms as a legitimate free speech act protected by the First Amendment, even if the folks doing such protesting are assholes. Of course shooting people with those firearms isn't "protected speech," but maybe our police officers could prepare for such things, you know, the way they seem to do when liberals march?

From the "Liberals Do Obnoxious Swordfighting Too" file: Katherine Cross, at The Establishment, asserts that "(e)very person who’s ever misused arguments for free speech to defend Nazis or white supremacists...has some measure of Heather Heyer’s blood on their hands." Gosh, I guess that includes me! Call me old-fashioned, but I think James Alex Fields and no one else has Ms. Heyer's blood on his hands, and more than a few liberals (Dennis Miller may be the most famous example) have switched sides after people like Ms. Cross kept shouting at them that they weren't liberal enough. Luckily for me, God made me a liberal, and I stopped bucking God a long time ago.

The Straight Dope's take on net neutrality -- the principle that says you, and not some corporation, should get to decide where you go on the internet -- isn't all that deep, but it contains one brilliant observation: that the worst thing that could happen as a result of its disappearance is "a time when an ISP might think carefully about what kind of content it allows to be seen on the Web, for fear of poking the orange dragon," i.e., our infamously thin-skinned President. That's weapons-grade PR, right there, so tell all your friends: Donald Trump wants to kill net neutrality so he doesn't get criticized on the internet.

I agree with this Las Vegas Sun editorial's description of Republican efforts to recall two state Senators (one Democratic, one independent) as "an abuse of the recall provision" and "an attempt to hijack the democratic process,", but that doesn't mean I want to stop the recalls. Let the endangered incumbents campaign against the inherent stupidity of the recall -- it's possible to do that without sounding self-pitying, you know! -- and show Republicans that future efforts to nullify democratic elections will fail. I'm not even particularly upset by the notion of "nonstop elections" -- elected officials should expect to be accountable to their bosses, the people, at any time.

Finally, you've no doubt heard that Steve Bannon's out as President Trump's "senior strategist" or whatever, and has made a soft landing at his old employer, Breitbart. And just like his old boss he continues to let his mouth write checks his ass can't cash, saying "I've got my hands back on my weapons" (I shudder to think what he's actually got his hands on) and that he's "definitely going to crush the opposition," which is what approximately zero people who crush the opposition say before they crush the opposition. I look forward to ignoring him, just like I did before he joined the Trump Administration.

Action: government spying, and racism.

You've likely heard that the Department of Justice is trying to get Dreamhost to provide the IP addresses (among other things!) of over a million folks who visited an anti-Trump site before his inauguration -- ostensibly to investigate the 200 or so folks who face felony rioting charges related to inauguration protests, but we all know why they really want the info. Hence both Demand Progress and Defending Rights and Dissent help you tell the Justice Department to abandon its attempt to spy on over a million American citizens. As I said earlier this week, it's more than a bit stunning that DOJ was able to get warrants from the D.C. Superior Court for this info, because it sure looks like a fishing expedition. It also looks like a President so insecure in his faith that he could execute the duties of his office that he tried to intimidate as many good Americans as he could. Most people would try to do a job so well that they'd have fewer opponents, but then Donald Trump ain't most people.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press has instructed its writers to avoid using the term "alt-right" to describe the Nazi wannabes who perpetrated violence in Charlottesville last week, but the rest of the "liberal" media still uses the term that Nazi wannabes concocted because they knew the words "Nazi" or "white supremacist" would give away their evil far more easily, so Moms Rising helps you tell mainstream media outlets to stop describing racists as either "alt-right" or "white nationalists." "White nationalists," of course, effaces their racism a bit, and implies that the nation they want to turn white is some nation other than our nation, whereas "alt-right" implies that these Nazi wannabes are somehow different from the ones that have plagued us forever. Well, they are different, in a way -- they whine incessantly about being criticized and being singled out and (in Richard Spencer's words, not mine!) needing a "safe space." It's hard out there for a pimp.

Action: voting rights, and free speech.

H.R. 2978/S. 1419, the Voting Rights Advancement Act, still awaits Congressional consideration; it would (among other things!) fix the problem the Supreme Court found with the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder, in which the Justices struck down the Act's preclearance formula (which determines which states and localities need to get preclearance from the Department of Justice anytime they change their voting laws). Used to be a group of almost entirely Southern states and localities had to get preclearance, but the Voting Rights Advancement Act would create a new formula that would require any state or locality, regardless of geography, to get preclearance if they've demonstrated a lengthy pattern of voting rights abuses -- thus satisfying, I would think, the Justices' very, very narrowly-constructed declaration in Shelby that the Voting Rights Act was unfair to the South as it is now. So you can use the tools in the upper right-hand corner of this page (or the bottom, if you're on a cellphone) and call your Reps and Senators and tell them to pass the Voting Rights Advancement Act.

Meanwhile, Color of Change helps you tell North Carolina state legislators to reject a bill that would immunize drivers who hit protestors with their cars. You may recall that in the wake of massive anti-Trump protests that blocked off traffic, state legislators rushed to introduce many odious anti-free speech bills, including bills that would let drivers off the hook when they hit protestors. Well, recent events sure have put that particular effort in a new light, haven't they? Five of the six states that considered these bills didn't pass them, but of course North Carolina's reactionary state House has already passed the bill and now its reactionary state Senate will consider it. Don't brook any silliness from right-wingers about how nobody could have predicted a Nazi wannabe would run down protestors! Actually, anyone could have predicted it, and even before Charlottesville, it was an odious bill no civilized person should have ever supported.

Around the table: mostly about Charlottesville, but also about health care and spying on protestors.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions calls Charlottesville attack an incident of domestic terrorism and vows to pursue "the most serious charges that can be brought." That leaves him wiggle room, of course -- by which I don't necessarily mean farming the case out to the state of Virginia, because that might work out worse for the suspect -- but I won't lie to you and say it's utterly meaningless that he said it, since he is Attorney General, after all, and he has a pulpit.

But just as one hand giveth: Department of Justice has been trying to get IP addresses for over 1 million Americans who may have visited an anti-Trump website. I'm stunned, frankly, that the DOJ could get such a broad warrant, apparently in connection with the 200 folks still being held on felony riot charges in connection fo Inauguration Day protests. If judges are showing that much deference to the Executive branch (particularly this Executive branch), that's not a good sign.

Ho hum, CBO estimates that if President Trump cuts off Affordable Care Act subsidies, premiums will go up 20 percent by next year for those who use subsidies to get health insurance, and 25 percent by 2020. Note to the President: it's not "letting Obamacare fail" if you actively work to make it fail, any more than it's an "accident" if you set fire to your own house.

Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept reminds us that the ACLU shouldn't get slammed for representing people we don't agree with. Not just because rights are even for Nazi wannabes, and not just because news items saying ZOMG TEH ACLU DEFENDEDZ TEH NAMBLAZ!!!! tend not to tell the whole story, but because, as the ACLU itself puts it, "once you chip away at one person’s rights, everyone else’s are at risk...Free speech doesn’t belong only to those we agree with, and the First Amendment doesn’t only protect speech that is tasteful and inoffensive. In fact, it is in the hard cases that our commitment to the First Amendment is most tested and most important." Another way of putting it: if your values only tell you what you want to hear and never inconvenience you, they're bad values.

Finally, President Trump finally leveled specific condemnations at Nazi wannabes a mere 48 hours after the Charlottesville attacks, though not without also bragging about the economy and pretending he'd already condemned them. I'm sure his votaries aren't offended -- after all, they heard him the first time, and are pretty sure he was "made" to say what he said the second time. How long before they finally get tired of a President who struts around like that but can so easily be "made" to do things against his will? Probably about the same time they get tired of feeling sorry for themselves, so that could be a while. In the meantime, how about Democrats run some actual populists for office, so Trump votaries can have a real model of better behavior?

Action: "free" trade, and endangered species.

With NAFTA renegotiation formally beginning tomorrow, Jobs with Justice helps you write a letter-to-the-editor expressing your desire that NAFTA work for all people, not just rich folks and corporations. As you know, President Trump withdrew from the notorious Trans-Pacific "Partnership" earlier this year, but his recent maneuvers on NAFTA renegotiation don't inspire confidence -- he not only pointedly refused to demand the end of the "investor-state tribunal" in NAFTA that's the main reason we oppose "free" trade deals to begin with, but he's appointed numerous cabinet members who have professed their undying love for outsourcing our jobs and nullifying our laws with "free" trade deals. Why, Commerce Secretary Ross actually said, out loud, that he'd like NAFTA to be more like the TPP! So get out of the mindset, if you're in it, that At Least Trump Has Our Back on Trade -- he's already sold us out on letting Medicare negotiate its own drug prices, after all. After one meeting with big pharma CEOs, no less.

Meanwhile, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell your Senators to reject H.R. 2134/S. 935, the so-called Endangered Species Management Self-Determination Act, then Penn Environment still helps you do that. This clumsily-named bill would give our government a mere five years to get endangered species back to health, when, frankly, nursing a species back to health is something you'd rather do right than do quickly. Ask the bald eagle, which took 40 years to get off the endangered species list. But wait, there's more! The bill would mandate a full vote of Congress to approve any species put on the endangered list, would let state Governors nullify protections for those species found only within their state borders, and would prevent the courts from reviewing these Governors' decisions -- because developing land and drilling for fossil fuels on their big donors' behalf is more important than, you know, the lessons we teach future generations about what lasts and what fades away.

Around the table: time for another exciting round of "when's that terrorist attack coming?"

DHS spokeshack says President Trump didn't condemn Nazi wannabes on Sunday because he didn't want to "dignify" them. You know, the way foreign terrorists and his Twitter critics obviously need to be "dignified," since Mr. Trump never shuts his yap about them. Somewhere, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan still await his next "pivot," and the "liberal" media still awaits the moment they can say that "Donald Trump became President today" and a large number of Americans might actually believe it. (But see the last paragraph, below, for the most likely way that latter item would occur.)

Of course Fox and Friends thinks President Trump "nailed it" with his cowardly blanket condemnation that utterly failed to single out the fools who were actually responsible for Saturday's violence. You remember when Black Lives Matter activists ran over a bunch of white counter-protestors, or when police officers fired rubber bullets and tear gas and water cannons at Nazi wannabes? No, you don't. And "the reason those people were out there"? Clearly, they were out there because they wanted everyone to see them soil their diapers.

The Indianapolis Star finds that state and local Republican officials have done their damndest to extend early voting in Republican areas and cut it in Democratic ones. So when right-wingers say that early voting creates fraud and that Election Day should be the only day anyone votes, how will they justify these maneuvers in Indiana? I kid, of course -- fuck you I won is the only justification right-wingers have for doing anything.

Courtesy the Economic Policy Institute, we have yet more data that corporations don't pay the 35% corporate tax rate, and thus should stop their whining about how the tax rate doesn't make them appropriately "competitive" overseas, or how it prevents them from creating jobs. Citizens for Tax Justice puts the effective corporate tax rate (i.e., the portion of their profits corporations actually pay in taxes) at 19.4%, while the GAO puts the rate at 14%. A third estimate from 2014 puts it even lower. But please, right-wingers, go on about TEH HIGHEST OF TEH TAX RATEZ IN TEH WORLDZ!!!!!

President Trump runs a campaign ad simultaneously boasting about his "achievements" and attacking his critics. So the 46% President has now accomplished the feat of strutting around like he won 66% and whining like he won 26% in the space of thirty seconds. And psst: President Obama created over 2 million jobs in 2016. And the stock market measures speculation more than anything else. And Mr. Trump still ain't gotten a single bill passed that's helped Americans -- in fact, he's only gotten bills passed that have hurt us.

Finally, Trump Administration aides are predicting a "brutal" September for the Administration, given the many issues (the debt ceiling and a federal budget resolution chief among them) the Administration will have to navigate. Well, sounds like the time is right for a terrorist attack to take everyone's mind off those pesky issues and get them to love and worship Dear Leader! Hey, it got George W. Bush a second term, and his first term wasn't going so great either when it happened.

Action: tax "reform," and home-grown terror.

American investor Nick Hanauer has started a petition on Change.org which helps you tell your Congressfolk to give rich folk and corporations "not one penny in tax cuts." I find it fascinating that this document finally exists -- in a nation where more than half of Americans have thought the rich should pay more for many years now, it really should have come into being a lot sooner! -- but it is still a defensive maneuver. If you want to play offense, call your Reps and Senators and demand a 91% tax bracket on millionaire income (which will not raise taxes on any income under $1 million, no matter what some right-winger tells you) and an end to corporate welfare tax breaks without reducing the corporate tax rate, so that small businesses and ordinary Americans like us don't have to shoulder a bigger share of our taxes than we can pay or deserve. You don't just move the line by holding the line; you move the line by seeing where the line could be -- and, in this case, where the line has been, since the 91% tax bracket was a feature of our tax code through the middle of the last century.

Meanwhile, a Change.org petition also helps you demand that our Department of Justice bring terrorism charges against James Alex Fields, who drove a car into a group of counter-protestors in Charlottesville, VA on Saturday. In apparently deciding to use his automobile as a weapon, Mr. Fields killed one person (Heather Heyer, of Charlottesville) and injured 19 others, and though I have no interest in reading any manifesto he may have written or may yet write, I find it hard to imagine that he did not intend to terrorize other folks into being silent. And I'd feel the same even if we didn't already know that driving cars into large groups of people has become one of ISIS's favorite ways of spreading terror. (If we pointed that out to him, we would not be surprised, I'd hope, if he reacted with some admiration toward terrorists he might otherwise call "mud people.") Perhaps a terrorist charge for Mr. Fields is, ah, a big ask of this particular Administration, one that loves swinging its balls when discussing a foreign threat but gets all limp when the perp is a home-grown Nazi wannabe. But duty is duty.

Around the table: what "both sides do it" actually means, and other lessons.

Nazi wannabes initiate violence against anti-racist protestors in Charlottesville, VA -- and President Trump condemns the behavior of "many sides." As Roy Edroso instructed us many years ago, when someone says some variation of "both sides do it," it's usually because their side just got caught doing it. I wish we could just ignore Nazi wannabes, but better we treat them like the whiny, diaper-loaded brats they are. Yes, even though they're armed -- if they're really going to shoot us because we hurt their fee-fees, they'll have to bring that to the Pearly Gates.

Democrats run ads in red states decrying "Washington bureaucrats" and "cuts to Medicare" -- without saying that the "bureaucrats" haven't actually met yet to cut anything, and the cuts almost certainly wouldn't be "deep" and wouldn't come for several years. Also, the Affordable Care Act itself would create this board of "bureaucrats," and only if Medicare costs started to rise too quickly -- meaning that Republicans could easily launch attack ads against Messrs. Donnelly and Tester, at least, for voting for the ACA and therefore for the board of "unelected Washington bureaucrats"! With so many factual descriptions of Republican evil available, you have to wonder why Democrats keep running ads that can be so easily neutralized and/or turned on them. I sure hope it's not because they're trying to lose, though you always have to consider that possibility.

A New York Times report finds EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt going to extraordinarily lengths to disguise his doings -- from making his underlings travel a labyrinthine path to get to see him to making phone calls from other folks' offices. Plus, you know, he has armed guards! You and I might take precautions to keep criminals and identity thieves from attacking us, but what does a servant of the American people like Scott Pruitt have to fear? Particularly when he's supposed to, you know, be accountable to the people? (And of course the EPA spokeshack accuses the Times of "collud(ing) with union officials"!)

Have you heard of Steve Bannon's little Damascus moment in the "war on terror," when, as a Naval officer in the late 1970s, he visited a Pakistani port? Well, Peter Maass at The Intercept did a little digging, and found that Mr. Bannon couldn't have visited that port at that time. He was almost certainly in no position to describe 1980 Iran as being as desolate as the moon from miles away, either. So many life-changing moments just aren't as dramatic as literature tells us -- my own transition from cowardly centrist to proud liberal took at least a year. Still, Mr. Bannon's false narrative would be a worse lie than the ones we generally tell ourselves, and not just because it would cause more harm to others.

Finally, a Harvard economist says "Liberals are Terrible at Arguing with Conservatives." Having accepted his conclusion (that arguments require "both facts and values") for close to 15 years now, maybe I'm not as impressed as I should be, but I don't think he actually describes arguing with conservatives -- I think he describes arguing with reactionaries, which one should never do. You're really better off leaving the changing of reactionary minds to God, and working instead on the vast number of folks who aren't yet reactionaries. (As for his assertion that liberals care more about consequences and conservatives care more about processes, I'm inclined to think good processes tend to create good consequences, though not necessarily in each and every case.)

Around the table: in which we discuss worker rights, "free" trade, health care, the "age tax," and right-wing whining.

Workers at a Mississippi Nissan plant reject UAW representation by a nearly 2-1 margin -- and Joe Allen at In These Times wonders what the UAW might have done wrong. Long story short: "the UAW has become a prison of its modern history," and didn't, for example, try to organize temps and other workers at the weak points of Nissan's Just-in-Time-reliant supply chain. Meanwhile, Joe Atkins at Labor South is more optimistic, not just because heartbreak on the road to recognition is not uncommon, but also because it'll be more difficult for "free" trade deals, and other nefarious forces, to destroy a 6,400-worker auto plant than to destroy textile mills.

Dean Baker wonders "Is the New York Times Required to Lie to Push Trade Agreements?" Short answer: yes. Somewhat longer answer: the lies are getting a little better now, since they depend on you, like most folks, not knowing the precise size of Japan's beef market or the precise role of the Canadian softwood industry on the value of American home construction, so that in the end you're a lot more susceptible to scare numbers. Also, too, collecting anecdotes is the beginning of science, not its end. Hell, it's not the end of journalism, either. It's not even the end of storytelling.

Steven Rosenfeld at AlterNet offers "11 Steps States Could Take to Rein In Healthcare Costs While Building Toward Single-Payer Universal Coverage." Mr. Rosenfeld suggests we should attack the "medical billing complex" as a stepping stone to universal health insurance coverage; most of them require increased state regulation, and when right-wingers rise to squeal ZOMG TEH REGULASHUNZ RAISEZ TEH COSTZ!!!!!, folks who are aware how much our health care already costs may not be very impressed.

Democrats start running campaign ads against 10 House Republicans for voting for the notorious House repeal-and-replace bill, accusing them of supporting an "age tax." That's not bad, and it's not a lie, either -- letting health insurance corporations charge seniors five times as much for insurance, rather than three times as much as Obamacare presently allows, is rather like assessing a tax on someone just for being old. Maybe my wish that all campaign ads attacking Republicans were like this one has prejudiced me, but the "age tax" isn't the best arrow in Democrats' quiver -- other, sharper arrows include they tried to kill Medicaid! and they tried to take money from Medicare and give it to rich people!

Finally, a Breitbart writer suggests that a Vogue cover showing Jennifer Lawrence and the Statue of Liberty comprises more liberal bias from the media. You know, because of that pissing match White House aide/face even a mother could punch Stephen Miller had with CNN reporter Jay Acosta about the Statue of Liberty and immigration law. Only after being told that covers are generally shot months in advance of publication did Mr. Carney finally say he was only "teasing," which he would have said at the beginning if it were really true. Anyway, it's nice to have the Statue of Liberty back from right-wingers, even if only because right-wing drama hounds have decided it's too liberal for them.

Action: government oppression, offshore drilling, and bad media.

The government of Turkey sure has been on a roll lately, purging itself of thousands of workers President Erdogan has deemed insufficiently loyal after an apparent attempted coup in 2016, and arresting and detaining many more private citizens, including 10 human rights workers at a meeting at a hotel near Istanbul about a month ago. Among these detainees is an Avaaz staff member named Özlem, and Avaaz helps you call for her release. Also among them is Idil Eser, head of Amnesty International's Turkish branch, and Amnesty International helps you call for her release as well. If you can put a face to Turkey's oppression, you make it that much harder for Turkey to oppress folks. If you can put a relatively prestigious face (like Ms. Eser's) on Turkey's reign of terror, you can certainly move the needle a bit. But if you can also put a relatively unknown face (like Özlem's) on it, you can remind good folks all over the world that folks like them get caught up in government oppression, too. We might also find it useful to remind President Trump (whose Administration has, surprisingly, condemned the arrests, instead of ignoring them) that the Big Stick of Bad PR can come his way if he gets ideas.

Meanwhile, the Trump Administration wants to open our coasts to offshore drilling again, apparently thinking we've all forgotten the Spillageddon in the Gulf a mere seven years ago, a spill that made British Petroleum look like the most heartless corporation in the world (in a contest that always has a lot of entrants!) and devastated the local economies of Louisiana and Florida for years to come. But, you know, some oil or gas CEO needs to gild the plumbing in his 19th vacation home, so to hell with what the people need! Naturally the Department of the Interior will only take comments on the offshore drilling plan for another six days, so Food and Water Watch helps you tell our government to protect our water and our livelihoods and stop new offshore drilling. No use arguing this is about "American energy independence" -- real American energy independence would begin with expanding renewable energy sources like solar and wind. Trouble is, that program would also grant us independence from oil and gas CEOs getting all the say about everything, and we can't have that in the greatest democratic experiment in Earth's history!

Finally, Media Matters helps you tell major corporations to stop advertising on Sean Hannity's Fox News show. While it's true that Mr. Hannity's program has morphed from a garden variety right-wing hackfest into a full-blown Trump TV operation, basically we should be encouraging corporate advertisers to run away from his program because of everything he's ever said. (OK, he hasn't been as bad on gays as other right-winger blowhards, but that's nothing to take to the Pearly Gates.) And just to review: the First Amendment protects you from your government; it does not protect you from your employer or from your advertisers, and it certainly does not protect you from activists, critics, or customers. I say this not just to pre-empt charges that a campaign targeting Mr. Hannity's advertisers somehow "oppresses" him, but to pre-empt corporate attempts to expand this "right" into a weapon they could wield against, say, a disgruntled customer's negative online review of their product, or even a customer's desire to buy a competitor's product, or no product. When our politicians constantly whine about the First Amendment when someone criticizes them, these things are not so hard to imagine.

Around the table: in which we contemplate a tale of burner phones and dead cats.

Trump Administration abandons effort to defend FCC rules capping prison phone rates from multiple lawsuits. FCC Chair Ajit Pai not only uses anecdotal evidence (that someone could stuff a burner phone into a dead cat and throw it over a prison wall!) to defend his inaction, but uses anecdotal evidence that actually obliterates his argument (lower phone rates would, I would think, obviate the need to use dead cats to smuggle burner phones). Anyway, letting corporations charge usurious phone rates because prisoners and their families literally can't do better isn't the definition of "free market conservatism," no matter how many of today's "conservatives" confuse their ancient philosophy with "letting corporations do whatever they want."

Five transgendered American soldiers sue our government over President Trump's declaration on Twitter that "the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military." It's possible the lawsuit gets thrown because Mr. Trump hasn't apparently lifted a finger to actually enforce this declaration, but his whining about the "cost" of health care for transgendered soldiers when it costs more to send Mr. Trump on the taxpayer dime to Mar-a-Lago every weekend would support the plaintiffs' "arbitrary and capricious" claim.

California farmers are losing money, and letting some of their crops rot, apparently due to the lack of migrant workers available to pick the crops. Let's not tacitly accept the notion that only-a-migrant-worker-would-pick-strawberries, though -- instead, let's ask whether maybe folks who would pick fruit (and Americans aren't as loathe to do dirty work as Our Glorious Elites are!) might have a little more leverage now when it comes to getting better pay and working conditions. No use complaining that higher wages cause higher prices when, ah, not having enough workers to pick the fruit already causes higher prices.

Let's not obsess too much over a Democrat's 54-44 win in an Iowa House special election on Tuesday -- President Trump took this district by over 20 points, but it was still a Democrat hold (the previous state Rep died in office earlier this year) and turnout just eclipsed 40%. It is good that the ZOMG TEH TRANZ PEEPULZ WILL USEZ TEH BATHROOMZ!!!! hysteria didn't work here (and could have caused a backlash, for all we know!), just as it didn't get North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory re-elected. The better lesson to learn? Social wedge issues all the way up to abortion won't work against Democrats who can convince people they won't sell them out to Our Glorious Elites -- but Democrats won't try this in large numbers, either out of weakness or out of a desire to keep that Glorious Elite campaign cash coming.

Finally, I've been churning over President Trump's continued refusal to denounce or even acknowledge last week's bombing at a Minnesota mosque, and I've concluded (not that this was a difficult analysis to undertake) that his silence is a dog whistle to his votaries. I've also concluded that when he does denounce the attack, as I'm sure he'll do soon, that act will be another dog whistle to his votaries, as in I tried to ignore a matter that certainly doesn't concern you, but look what PC culture made me do! Of course, I'm sure Mr. Bannon is counseling continued silence, but I bet Mr. Trump knows what's best for those poor beleaguered racists.

Action: arbitration fairness, worker rights, and free speech.

You might deduce, from how quickly the House passed H.J.Res. 111 last month, that H.J.Res. 111 is a horrible bill -- and you'd be right! H.J.Res. 111 is yet another "resolution of disapproval," this one aimed at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's recent rule preventing banks from putting forced arbitration clauses in customer contracts -- a rule that hasn't even taken effect! It's like all this Congress can do is "disapprove" of, and destroy, good works. And the banksters are all lined up to tell you that you should have the "choice" of arbitration (how is a forced arbitration clause about "choice"? You figure it out) and that arbitration payouts are on average larger than class action payouts. Oh, but we already know what to say to that: you win less than 10% of the time when you go to arbitration with a corporation, meaning that ore than 90% of all customers win, on average, zero dollars. And corporations can take you to arbitration, and they win more than 90% of the time there, too -- and customers pony up over $7,000, on average. Got $7,000 lying around? If you're like most people, you don't. So call your Senators and tell them to reject H.J.Res. 111, lest they be perceived as lawmakers who only care about banksters.

Meanwhile, the International Labor Rights Forum helps you tell the Colombian government to investigate Alberto Román Acosta González's murder and protect other Colombian trade union leaders as if, you know, they were citizens with rights and stuff. Mr. Acosta was president of his local agricultural workers union, largely representing sugar cane workers. Remember back in the day, when sugarcane workers simply died after working two or three years in the fields? Things are slightly better now for sugar cane workers -- they make a little less than $200 monthly, nearly twice the poverty line in Colombia, but they also work 14-hour days to get there. And clearly someone doesn't want them to get any more than that, since two gunmen shot Mr. Acosta to death while watching his son play soccer. Well, that'll teach a man to be there for his family! I sure hope I don't need to ask the question: does being a labor leader justify the death penalty? Sugar cane workers deserve all the good pay and decent working conditions they can get as members of a civilized society. Some folks will actually respond, even now, BUT THAT WILL HIKE TEH PRICEZ OF TEH SUGARZ!!!! But that might be a cue for those of us with First World Problems to eat less chocolate and more fruit.

Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell your Congressfolk to oppose H.R. 1697/S. 720, the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, then CREDO still helps you do that. Both H.R. 1697 and S. 720 enjoy broad bipartisan support in Congress, which should tell you that they do not, in fact, enjoy broad bipartisan support among the American people, who are, by and large, rather skeptical that we should just do whatever Israel tells us to do. But S. 720 has also had one high-profile defection, that of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, who withdrew her sponsorship after being confronted about the matter at a townhall. I shudder to think that encounter will induce her, also, to stop meeting with her constituents, though I'd be happy to be wrong. But these bills don't imitate various efforts to deny state funding to organizations associated with the Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions (or BDS) movement, efforts I find distasteful but not unconstitutional -- these bills would actually put you in jail and/or assess steep fines for associating with the BDS movement. That's not only unconstitutional, but it should make you wonder whether Israel really has the moral high ground, if it needs this much help.

Around the table: time for another exciting campaign from Danny Tarkanian! And other stories.

Martin Longman at Washington Monthly says Democrats might fight their way back to power in rural/poor white districts by fighting monopolies again. I'd quarrel with some of his points, but if you're looking for something that unites rank-and-file Americans, fighting monopolies might be it, particularly since monopolies lay waste to communities that never vote Democrat anymore. Fighting monopolies might even be the idea that unifies all the other things that unite rank-and-file Americans across the ideological spectrum (like opposition to media consolidation, corporate crime, "free" trade, and bankster power).

Apple removes some of its Virtual Private Network (or VPN) apps from its Chinese app store, which just so happens to jibe with China's ongoing internet crackdown. Apple is notorious for strong-arming app developers into making their products to conform to its rigid hardware and software requirements, but it would have been a vain hope to think they'd play hardball with the Chinese government. So remind your friends and family to avoid thinking we should let corporations do whatever they like, so that corporate power can be a bulwark against totalitarians.

If you've fallen prey to the notion that we shouldn't expect to see life-saving vaccines if there's no money in it (cough ebola cough), Dean Baker reminds us that our government can play a role in developing such vaccines, such as the Zika vaccine. Of course, corporate whining about government involvement in vaccine development is doubly offensive when you consider how much taxpayer money goes into developing big pharma drugs -- and sigh, our government will grant the corporation it paid to develop the Zika vaccine a seven-year monopoly on it.

Political gadfly Danny Tarkanian says he'll take on Sen. Dean Heller in the 2018 Republican primary, because Mr. Heller isn't pro-Trump enough. Can he win the nomination? Sure he can, even against a formidable campaigner like Mr. Heller. Can he win the general? Of course he can, even though he's now lost five attempts for high-profile office since 2004 -- 2018 isn't going to be a year for non-ideological problem-solvers to win office, but a year for populists and fake populists to win office. Still, we can't discount the possibility that the end result (or even the intent!) will be that Mr. Heller looks more palatable to the good folks of Nevada -- he really blew it with that last health care vote, after all.

I've long believed that websites like Napster existed because people really, really wanted to download music and the record corporations should have moved a lot more quickly to fulfill their desires, but my generosity most certainly does not extend to the hackers who are trying to blackmail HBO into giving them a cut of their largesse. We may reasonably debate whether HBO has too much money, but that doesn't make everyone who wants to take it from them into Robin Hood, even if it means some folks will get to see the next Game of Thrones episode a few days early. So yeah, this "Mr. Smith" is just an asshole, or a group of assholes.

Finally, since we're on the subject, I'm with Charles Blow's characterization of Donald Trump as "America's Whiniest 'Victim'" -- until he suggests that Mr. Trump's votaries are just as whiny as he is. A lot of votaries have legitimate grievances (corporations have utterly ravaged their neighborhoods and livelihoods, after all), though TEH BLACKZ GETZ ALL TEH GOODIEZ!!!! is, frankly, not a legitimate grievance, and if we addressed their legitimate grievances, a lot of their illegitimate ones would magically disappear. Still, it is a shame that none of them will never add the sum of Mr. Trump's whining and deduce that he is, in fact, a whiner.

Action: tax "reform," law and order, and clean air.

Heard those radio ads lamenting our "highest in the world" corporate tax rate? And did you immediately respond, so why do so many corporations pay no taxes? Strange that right-wingers would think cutting the corporate tax rate might be the most popular part of the Trump tax "reform" plan -- apparently no one's buying tax-cuts-for-the-rich as "middle-class tax cuts" anymore. But you know why Congress always waits until budgeting has to get done to pass their corporate welfare "tax extenders" -- because corporate tax cuts are unpopular. So use the tools in the upper right-hand corner of this page (or the bottom of the page, if you're on a cellphone) to tell your Congressfolk you want them to keep the corporate tax rate right where it is and close corporate tax loopholes so that the corporate tax raises more money and so good citizens and small businesses don't have to shoulder even more of the tax burden. And no, corporate tax cuts won't "liberate" CEOs to "create jobs" -- CEOs only create jobs when we make them, and when we close corporate tax loopholes, and bring back the return of the 91% tax bracket on millionaire income, we'll make them.

Meanwhile, H.R. 1865, the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, and S. 1693, the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, don't actually do much about sex trafficking, despite their titles -- instead, they allow internet service providers to be held liable for the activities of those folks who use their platforms. They won't go after phone corporations for letting sex traffickers use their phone lines, of course, but I digress. These bills would do nothing but cow a lot of internet service providers into shutting down services that sex traffickers might use, but which law-abiding Americans do use, like message boards, mailing lists, and dating apps. And right-wingers who constantly complain that liberals "blame the wrong people" should note that these bills actually do blame the wrong people -- only those ISPs that actually participate in sex trafficking should ever be held liable. I mean, that's basic law-and order, and when politicians use the horror of sex trafficking to curtail the freedoms of law-abiding citizens, they also do evil. So the Electronic Frontier Foundation helps you tell your Congressfolk to vote down H.R. 1865 and S. 1693.

Finally, S. 263 might be called the Ozone Standards Implementation Act, but mostly what it does is prevent our government from implementing ozone standards! S. 263 would, ho hum, give states more time to comply with the ozone standards the Obama Administration EPA put out in 2015, would allow the EPA to review those standards every 10 years instead of every five, and would force the EPA to jump through even more bureaucratic hurdles before it can issue new ozone-related regulations. A lot of right-wingers seem to think (or, more precisely, want you to think) that the EPA doesn't consider economic costs at all when issuing regulations, but it always does, perhaps too much so, and "economic costs," here, shouldn't just mean a CEO's ability to gild the plumbing in his 19th vacation home, but health care costs, which would go down at least $2.9 billion annually if the standards stay the way they are. Note well, also, that this bill's main sponsor is West Virginia Senator Shelly Moore Capito, who made a lot of noise about opposing the Trumpcare bill only to vote for the "repeal only" bill in the end. CREDO helps you tell your Senator to help keep our air clean by rejecting S. 263.

Action: government oppression, food safety, and marijuana prohibition.

Amnesty International helps you tell the government of Venezuela to release its political prisoners. Venezuela just had an election, as you know, and it wasn't quite the resounding victory for which incumbent President Nicolas Maduro might have hoped -- in fact, given the increased number of protestors out in the streets after the election, it may well have been a loss. Mr. Maduro has taken a page from Mr. Assad's playbook by shooting those protestors, a few short years after following in the footsteps of his predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez, by wresting rule-by-decree power, this time while the opposing party controlled the nation's assembly. But it doesn't matter whether I might agree with any part of Mr. Maduro's political philosophy, because governments are always wrong to fire on their protestors, and governments are always wrong to detain their political opponents. And if governments do either one, then they are failed governments, and deserve to be out of power.

Meanwhile, Food and Water Watch helps you tell the U.S. Department of Agriculture (or USDA) to keep unsafe Chinese chicken out of American stores. Specifically, you'll ask the USDA to deny "granting equivalency status for the poultry inspection system in the People's Republic of China," which the USDA would like to do though China's lackluster poultry inspection system is notorious the world over, allowing things you might expect (sick birds and antibiotic abuse) and things you might not (using recycled cooking oil from street gutters, yum!). This is the kind of thing we supposedly put Mr. Trump in office to stop, but the Trumpoids have an answer: it's a great deal, a YUGE deal, really, because we're opening up their markets to our beef! So we're selling safe, high-quality beef to China, and we're getting crappy, disease-ridden chicken in return. Yeah, that's a great deal like getting Jason Grimsley for Curt Schilling was a great deal for the Astros.

Finally, Sen. Booker (D-NJ) has introduced the Marijuana Justice Act, an ambitious bill worthy of the man Mr. Booker pushed out of the Senate, the late Frank Lautenberg. Among other things, the bill would end federal scheduling/prohibition of marijuana, withhold funding from states that continue to criminalize it (which they'd have the right to do) if they disproportionately arrest and convict non-whites on pot charges, and establish a Community Reinvestment Fund to help those communities most harmed by the "war on drugs" (which, as John Ehrlichmann himself said, was always about demonizing blacks and anti-war activists). Fact is, pot is no worse than alcohol or tobacco, and if it's a "gateway drug" to anything, it's most likely a gateway drug to "getting hemp grown the way we've historically grown cotton," which may explain Attorney General Sessions's opposition to it even more than any racist feelings he might have. Anyway, Drug Policy Alliance helps you tell your Congressfolk to support the Marijuana Justice Act.

Around the table: featuring truly bad arguments and governments gone wild!

Laura Gottesdeiner at Mother Jones finds our ongoing war against ISIS to be, well, rather less "precise" than advertised, to the point where many Syrian citizens think the Americans' main aim is to kill as many civilians as possible. You'd hate to think we've outdone Mr. Assad in the area of killing Syrian civilians, let alone ISIS, but in May and June we managed to outdo both in that area. And if you're thinking destroying ISIS is more important than worrying about the "collateral damage," you have to consider what killing civilians always does in the long term -- namely, that it creates more ISISes.

You've heard from right-wingers that consumers win more money through arbitration than class-action lawsuits, but the Economic Policy Institute reminds us that so few consumers ever win in forced arbitration -- a mere 9% do, making that nice-looking $5,000-plus average virtually meaningless, since you get zero dollars if you lose. Also, and we often forget to talk about this when we talk about forced arbitration, that corporations win even more often when they take you to arbitration, and they collect, on average, over $7,000 when they win. Class action lawsuits may not make you rich, but it ain't all about you -- it's also about everyone else who got harmed, and making sure corporations don't harm people again.

The Turkish government has detained half a dozen activists for the heinous crime of discussing and learning about encryption and digital security. Oh, sure, the charges include things like "committing crimes in the name of a terrorist organization without being a member," which sure sounds like a made-up thing, but make no mistake: they're oppressing good activists laying their lives on the line for their fellow citizens. And like so many other governments around the globe (cough Venezuela cough), Turkey's government does these things because it knows it will shrivel and die under ordinary circumstances. (But remember that our own CIA Chief, Mike Pompeo, has all but equated encryption to criminal activity as well.)

Ho hum, would-be Estate Tax killers still trot out family farms, even though the stodgiest Estate Tax opponents have never been able to find even one family farm that succumbed to it. Last month a House Ways and Means Committee hearing brought in a North Dakota farmer to decry the Estate Tax when his farm won't be subject to the Estate Tax, and a 2014 ad campaign against the Estate Tax featured a Kentucky farmer who took over $150,000 in farm subsidies over the previous 20 years! The Estate Tax repeal movement has always been one of America's stupidest -- but how many more bullets do we have to pump into this zombie lie to keep it down for good?

Finally, Janine Jackson at FAIR reminds us of the dangers of believing credulous "liberal" media stories about attacks against America by describing how the Tonkin Gulf "attack" led to the catastrophe in Vietnam. You have to hope that if/when Donald Trump tries something similar, today's "liberal" media will hate him enough to be a bit more skeptical, except that the "liberal" media seemed to love him best earlier this year when he fired a bunch of Tomahawk missiles at a just-deserted Syrian air base. So it's down to us to keep us out of war, as usual.

Around the table: the "Pharma Bro" heads to jail! And other stories.

President Trump supports bill that would cut legal immigration in half. So how will those white folks who always work themselves into a red-faced rage about TEH ILLEGULZ!!!!! prove they're not racist now? After all, they deflect charges of racism by saying but of course I support legal immigration, but this bill curtails legal immigration, so if you support this bill, you support less legal immigration. Of course, less legal immigration means more undocumented immigrants for people to get into a red-faced rage about, and thus more souls for the Trump goblins to harvest.

Joshua Holland at The Nation argues that single-payer isn't the solution to the problem of achieving universal health insurance coverage in America. So what is the solution, then? Well, the two solutions offerred by Mr. Hacker at Yale would both improve the system, and might even ultimately lead to single-payer coverage, but mainly we learn that converting to a single-payer system in America would be really hard, that not every "single-payer" system is a single-payer system per se, and that the folks fighting hardest for it should be nicer to their opponents. In other words, it sounds like folks slightly to our right want us to feel ashamed of ourselves for fighting so hard. Good luck with that.

Strangely enough, the title of this Patrick Eddington article at The American Conservative --"Why is Mattis Declaring War on Whistleblowers?" -- kinda buries the real story: that a group of NSA employees created a good system for constitutionally sifting internet traffic for terrorist activity, a system that some observers say could have prevented 9.11, but because the NSA Chief hated it and wanted to develop an entirely different and inferior system, the NSA buried it, and the folks who created it suffered greatly, at least in part because they filed whistleblower claims about it. In any case, it sure does look like the Trump Administration will be no better at protecting whistleblowers than previous ones.

Adam Johnson at FAIR describes the "liberal" media's addiction to "perseverance porn" -- i.e., the news stories about folks walking 10 miles each way to work, going right back to work after a serious accident, etc. The "liberal" media extolls these stories as proof that anyone-can-make-it-if-they-try, instead of asking fairly obvious questions, like "why isn't the walking man's area served by public transportation?" or "why doesn't his job pay him enough so he can buy a second-hand car"? As with the notion that the man who walks the streets of a "dangerous" neighborhood without incident for decades isn't news but the one who gets mugged is, one should wonder why the folks who can't get to work after getting run over don't make the news.

New study suggests that "Obama-Trump" voters may be more likely to simply be Republican voters who voted for Mr. Obama, rather than disaffected Democrats who voted for Mr. Trump. Thus, of course, getting those voters back is a fool's errand. Actual economic populism of the Bernie Sanders kind is, of course, the Gourdian knot that slices this problem -- an actual economic populist might expand the number of Democrats who actually come out to vote, and attract some Republicans whose emotional attachment to their party might only be built on rage. I guess that's why Democratic elites won't ever do it.

Finally, hedge fund manager/HIV drug price gouger Martin Shkreli now faces up to 20 years in prison after his conviction on securities fraud (two counts) and conspiracy (one). And just as Al Capone ultimately went to jail for tax evasion, the original Man with a Face Even a Mother Could Punch didn't get nailed for jacking up the price of Daraprim from $13.50 per tablet to $750 per tablet, which is what he'd go to jail for in a sane and healthy society. (No, he wouldn't go to jail for being a sexist pig -- though, in a sane and healthy society, he would be more thoroughly shamed and ostracized for being one.)

Action: health care, pollution, and food labeling.

You've likely heard by now that a group of "centrist" Congressfolk have come up with ideas for health care reforms to write into a bill. Headline: their ideas are mostly bad. Of course I'd like Congress to continue funding Affordable Care Act subsidies, but not at the price of applying the employer mandate only to corporations with 500 or more employees, versus corporations with 50 or more employees. The right constantly tries to see exactly how big they can make a corporation and still call it a "small business," but does 499 employees sound like a Mom and Pop store to you? They also want to get rid of the medical device tax and want to mess around with the pre-existing conditions ban, in the name of "innovation." You can't call a pile of dung meatloaf and then congratulate yourself for "innovating" on the definition of meatloaf. And why should I care that these ideas have ever received "bipartisan support"? I don't care about "bipartisan" ideas; I only care about good ideas, and these ain't those. Tools are in the upper right-hand corner of this page (or on the bottom, if you're on a cellphone) to help you call your Reps and Senators.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania state Senators have used a bill originally dealing with internet sales, HB 542, as a vehicle to gut clean air and clean water regulation in the Commonwealth! HB 542, in its relatively uncontroversial form, passed the House with a staggering majority back in May, but the Senate amended it thereafter to include a slew of pro-pollution amendments and then passed it by a far, far narrower margin. Hence the bill going back to the House now opens the door to privatizing the whole permitting process for gas and oil drilling, while also creating a legislature-appointed board that can veto clean air and clean water regulations and automatically approve drilling permits after 45 days. The bill also creates a fracking tax like the one the majority of Pennsylvanians have wanted for years, but again, why should we accept a slew of bad initiatives just to get one good one? That, folks, is called hostage-taking, and we Americans don't do hostage situations. Of course, having been so radically altered, HB 542 has to go back to the state House for approval, so both Penn Environment and Food and Water Watch help you tell your Pennsylvania House Reps to reject HB 542 when it comes back around.

Finally, if you've missed previous opportunities to tell the FDA to finalize its food labeling rules, then Moms Rising still helps you do that. The FDA finalized food labeling rules for menus from restaurants, supermarkets, convenience stores, and movie theatres, and the rules require menus to give information about calories, sugar, fat, and salt. But delay, delay, delay is the Trump Administration way, so the FDA has mooted delaying the rules until 2018, presumably so it can collect more comments from corporate types about how oppressive it is for them to tell people how fatty their burgers are or how sugary their soft drinks are. I'm a compulsive food label reader myself, and I've seen the positive changes in my life once I decided that maybe a proper serving of pasta was better than just eating with my eyes. But I'm not the only one -- a lot of folks make better dietary choices, even when eating out, once they're supplied with good information. Of course, a venal fool like President Trump -- for whom sensation is everything and thinking about the future is for "losers" -- probably doesn't understand that very well, and reflexively anti-government Republicans will do little but enable him. But we don't have to enable him.

Action: redistricting, and drug pricing.

Pennsylvania residents, take note: Fair Districts PA helps you tell your PA state legislator to support real redistricting reform by co-sponsoring HB 722/SB 22. HB 722/SB 22 would, as you know, take the decennial redistricting process away from the state legislature (which has tended to redraw districts according to its members' interests, rather than the interests of the good citizens of the Commonwealth) and give it to a redistricting commission composed of elected partisans in equal number as well as folks who don't hold elected office and who are selected by the partisans (and, again, with an equal number of partisans, they'd have to agree, rather than having one side or the other ram their choices down the other side's throats). Fair Districts PA asks that if your Rep or Senator already sponsors the bill, you tell them to talk to Sen. Former and Rep. Metcalfe to schedule hearings in their respective committees. HB 722/SB 22 has actual bipartisan support in both houses of the legislature, which is rare -- but we've still got to keep the ball moving.

Meanwhile, if you've missed previous opportunities to oppose H.R. 1223, which would let big pharmaceutical corporations hold onto certain drugs' exclusive rights for even longer, then both and CREDO and People's Action still help you do that. Why should we compel big pharmaceutical corporations to let other corporations use their property so those latter corporations can make cheaper, generic versions of those drugs? Part of the answer lies in the phrase "their property" -- big pharma depends so much on taxpayer assistance to begin with that we can easily establish a right to oversee "their property" for the public good, since it's also our property. And we can also establish that paying less money for medications people need to take, in order to be healthy enough to exercise their freedoms under our Constitution, is a public good, a more important public good than letting big pharma exercise absolute property rights on drugs that don't exist without government research or funding. In short: our freedoms matter more than big corporate freedoms.

Around the table: in which we contemplate White House drama, Russian oppression, and bankster corruption.

In case you were thinking the former Marine General who's now President Trump's Chief of Staff will stop all the drama in the White House, the incomparable Heather Digby Parton at Salon warns us that President Trump hasn't gotten on quite well with perceived military strongmen as time has gone on. Gen. McMaster, in particular, was "the new sheriff in town" not long ago, and now they're pushing him out of the way like he's Mayor Farnum on Deadwood. But here's a question: if Mr. Trump does turn on yet another man he sees as "a 'tough' leader, like himself," will Trump votaries start thinking maybe Mr. Trump isn't actually tough? Or will they continue to equate acting like a prick with "being tough"?

Speaking of the President acting like a prick, now the White House tells us his statement to Long Island police suggesting they should not be "too nice" when apprehending certain suspects was a "joke." If you find police brutality funny, or if you think all suspects are guilty merely because the police arrest them, then I guess the "joke" worked for you, even if it apparently didn't work for dozens of police departments, who don't routinely get criticized by the right for being so "sensitive" like the rest of us do.

Russian government passes law banning Virtual Private Networks (or VPNs), as well as other means of surfing the internet anonymously. Like our own CIA chief, the Russian government seems to think that the mere act of trying to protect your identity (or your data) online means you're a criminal trying to cover your tracks. You could just be a patriot, trying to protect yourself from the state! Why do I suspect that Trump supporters -- who call themselves patriots an awful lot, after all -- would cheer this on? Because their "patriotism" mainly means sticking it to liberals, that's why.

Wells Fargo admits to charging "several hundred thousand borrowers for car insurance they did not want or need," which of course enabled them to collect unearned missed-payment fees and repossess some 20,000 cars. Is this why we should let our bravest and boldest entrepreneurs do whatever they please, with no fear of government regulation? Not only do these bravest-and-boldest contribute nothing of value to our civilization except perhaps their bad example, they don't do any real work, either. Concocting a fraud scheme isn't work.

Finally, Brian Klaas at USA Today reminds us that President Trump "Embodies Every One of the Seven Deadly Sins." "He made the Boy Scouts speech about himself rather than about serving others" is the perfect sentence I spent a whole paragraph trying to write last week. But despite the cascade of irrefutable charges I'm sure Trump votaries won't be swayed, for how much of themselves will they see in this portrait of Dear Leader? There's nothing wrong with giving all your enemies what-for, they'll say, though I'm sure all of them, at some point, accepted the notion that some enemies are best ignored.

Action: rational budgeting, climate change, and abusing federal workers

The Trump Administration "Hard Power" budget -- no, I'm not calling it the "skinny budget," not just because "skinny" seems unthreatening, but because we should always call Trump Administration initiatives by their supervillain names, especially when the Trump Administration is dumb enough to hand them to us! -- would cut a lot of government spending that actually helps the good Americans who fund our government in the first place, and one of them is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (or CDC). How much does the CDC get annually? In FY 2016, the CDC's budget was a little over $11.5 billion, which ain't chump change (not even to Donald Trump!), but which also represented less than one-third of one percent of all federal spending that year. You'd think with all the CDC actually does for America as far as fighting infectious diseases, antibiotic resistance, and obesity, we'd actually increase their budget, not cut it. So PennPIRG helps you tell your Congressfolk to reject any attempt to cut the CDC budget.

Meanwhile, CREDO helps you tell Gap, Disney, and Pepsi to end their association with the reactionary climate change deniers at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Sadly, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has mutated from your grandparents' pro-business organization to a behemoth that lurches as far right as it can on every conceivable topic. Want banksters to stop stealing your money? Then the U.S. Chamber of Commerce will fight you. Want our politicians to stop giving welfare handouts to oil and gas corporations and start helping develop a renewable energy grid that would be the envy of the world if we but had the will to build it? The U.S. Chamber of Commerce will fight you there, too. Getting corporations to quit the Chamber because of its reactionary economic views isn't so effective, of course -- why, big corporations generally have the same views! But big corporations (Gap, Disney, and Pepsi among them) also like getting on the public's good side in re climate change, and so you hit them there.

Finally, the Department of the Interior has reassigned over four dozen high-level employees to new jobs -- including Joel Clement, formerly the head of Interior's Office of Policy Analysis, who spoke out publicly about climate change's impact upon Alaska's Native communities -- so the Sierra Club helps you tell Interior Secretary Zinke to stop moving Senior Executive Service employees around after they say things that make the Trump Administration uncomfortable. Once Mr. Zinke gets down from that horse he always seems to be riding whenever the cameras are around, he'll tell you that he can move employees as he sees fit -- which is true generally, but not if he's doing it in retaliation for whistleblowing, or to force workers to quit. But behold! Mr. Zinke has already said, out loud, that he would use "reassignments" as one tool to reduce the Department's workforce. Logically speaking, how would that work? By sending people to places that would provoke them into quitting, that's how! And why should we allow him to do that?

Action: tax "reform," and pro-rape laws.

Since many Republicans seem anxious to move on to tax "reform," use the tools in the upper right-hand corner of this page (or the bottom of this page, if you're on a cellphone) to call your Congressfolk and tell them to oppose the Republican tax "reform" "plan." As always, they'd give the biggest share of their tax cuts to the very rich -- and that's true of both their income and corporate tax cuts, since if corporations get to keep more of their profits, who do you think they're going to give it to? Their rich executives, of course. And if Congress repeals the Estate Tax, which doesn't affect estates under $5 million, who benefits from that? The very rich, again. No use telling me TEH RICHEZ CREATEZ TEH JOBZ!!!!!, not only because corporate executives never create a job if they can get away with it, but because higher taxes on the rich and on corporations create jobs -- when corporations have no incentive to hoard money or pay their executives outlandish sums, they'll hire more workers to make more stuff and call that an expense. I mean, that's how it worked in the country I grew up in -- you know, that place teabaggers keep wishing we could go back to?

Meanwhile, Jordan's Parliament may consider, as soon as today, repealing a law forcing rape victims to marry their rapists in order to "protect family honor." One wonders why the rapist doesn't bring dishonor on his own family through his action, or, you know, upon himself. (I presume we don't need to gender-equivocate about this matter as it occurs in Jordan or the seven other nations that still have such laws on their books.) But this is not a matter that should be left up to "cultural relativism" -- if a woman gets raped and then gets forced to marry the man who raped her, that's abominable simple and plain, not least because it takes away her freedom to be who she wants to be. And if the victim is a minor, who could not legally consent to sexual relations at all in America? That's even worse. So don't feel like a scold or a snob for telling people how to be civilized if they need to hear it. And of course some Jordanian lawmakers want to keep the law, because, I guess, change is hard and we can't just ignore tradition. But, ah, yeah, we can, in fact, ignore "tradition" that places a family's "honor" ahead of a woman's freedom and a civilization's justice. So Avaaz helps you tell the Jordanian Parliament to get rid of their pro-rape law.