So: Democrats might cut Medicare benefits in their ongoing "negotiations" with Republicans over the debt limit. Republicans, meanwhile, won't accept any revenue increases on high-income earners -- not on hedge fund managers who pay fewer taxes on their billions than you do on your tens of thousands, not on oil and gas corporations, not even on corporate jets. "Republicans would rather crash the economy than accept new taxes on corporate jets" should be a campaign ad, but Democrats are too "civil" to run it. It doesn't matter. If this is still a democracy, and not a country ruled by idiots, then we need to call our Reps and Senators and tell them: no Medicare benefit cuts, no more tax breaks for the rich and for corporate non-persons. And yes to taxing corporate jets. How much more of the world we fought to create must die in flames so the rich can gild their plumbing?

Meanwhile, in California, the Assembly passed AB 591, which would give California the toughest fracking disclosure law in the nation, and thus help save good Californians from the plight suffered by the many good Pennsylvanians who can now light their tap water on fire. AB 591 would force gas drillers to disclose exactly what chemicals they're injecting into the ground to loosen up the gas, which at present we only know after the fact, when scientists test the water. However, the state Senate still has to pass the bill, and the gas drillers are working their mojo on California's state Senators as we speak. Of course, Senators are only supposed to respond to the people's mojo. CREDO helps you work it. I can't imagine that any sane California Senator would decide that your right to clean water isn't as important as a gas drilling corporation's "right" to be "free" from the "cost" of doing the right thing. But you never know until you exert your will.