LarsonsWorld -- just another persons /dev/null

The U.S. Supreme Court's disastrous Citizens United v. FEC ruling has allowed corporate CEOs to unleash a torrent of secret corporate spending into our political system.

Indefensibly, CEOs are able to keep both the public and their own shareholders in the dark about the use of company funds for political ends.

This give CEOs free rein to make political expenditures that they would never be able to justify publicly -- including campaigns so toxic they would inevitably tarnish the company's brand were the funding source made public.

And the results have been absolutely corrosive to our democracy.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which is a federal agency, can require publicly traded companies to disclose the money they spend on politics. And they are accepting public comments on the merits of doing so.

So I just submitted a public comment telling the SEC not to let corporations hide their political spending. I hope you do, too.

Please join me by submitting your own comment.

The Republican leadership of the House of Representatives passed a budget plan that cuts off 300,000 kids from free school lunches at a time when one in five children lives in poverty.

In last summer's deal on the debt ceiling, the House and Senate agreed to mandatory future cuts to both the military and social programs. While painful, because the cuts to military spending were deep, this represented a much better deal than anything under consideration by the Super Committee - and effectively spared Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare benefits from cuts.

But now House Republicans have passed a sweeping budget-reconciliation bill that reneges on the debt-ceiling deal to cut military spending. It increases an already bloated Pentagon budget and pays for it by taking away funding for food stamps, wiping out key parts of the federal health care law, including health care for children, and slashes funding designated to rein in Wall Street corruption.

I just petitioned my senators to say no to a heartless tea party budget that pays for Pentagon increases by taking food and health care away from children. You should too.

Get more information and sign the petition.

The Obama administration has proposed new standards that would for the first time ever limit the industrial carbon pollution from power plants that contributes to global warming.
The EPA’s new clean air safeguards will help improve the quality of our air and protect our children’s health, while also helping to spark new innovations in clean energy technologies.
But before the EPA can finalize these new standards, they are accepting comments from the general public.
Will you take a minute to express your strong support for these historic new clean air standards?

Take action here.