Good morning! Today is Tax Day, and also the 149th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. It’s an appropriately nasty day here in NYC…
Tax Day…
- At Truthout, Dean Baker uses the occasion to lament the fact that some of the wealthiest Americans exploit a loophole that allows them to pay a tiny fraction of their incomes in taxes compared to the rest of us.
- TNR’s Jonathan Cohn argues that with the government starved of revenues, our taxes are too darn low.
- But Gallup notes that more Americans think the middle class is paying too much than at any time since 1999, and “a near-record number” think the poor are paying too little.
- Slate’s Jordan Weissmann reports that for most people with simple finances, paying taxes could be an easy, five-minute process if not for some heavy lobbying to keep it complicated by the makers of TurboTax.
Other news…
Public service –> The Pulitzer Prize for public service was awarded to The Guardian and The Washington Post for their reporting on Edward Snowden’s revelations about NSA snooping.
Free speech? –> A federal appeals court ruled that requiring companies to disclose their use of “conflict minerals” extracted in war zones would violate their First Amendment rights. Lindsay Abrams reports for Salon.
Lawyered up –> A judge convened a grand jury to investigate whether Texas Gov. Rick Perry broke the law by “vetoing funding for public corruption prosecutors last year.” Perry has reportedly hired a high-profile criminal defense attorney. AP, via Dallas Morning News.
Keep it in the ground –> Grist’s Samantha Larson looks at four fossil fuel stockpiles that could “toast the world.”
Assault perpetrator or victim? –> At The Nation, Michelle Goldberg concludes that the case against an Occupy Wall Street protester who says she was brutalized in a confrontation with police but was later charged with assaulting an officer is a “grotesque act of prosecutorial overreach.”
A right, in theory –> Robin Marty writes in The Daily Beast about the “nearly 1,200-mile-wide desert of abortion providers stretching from the western border of Idaho to the eastern borders of North and South Dakota.”
Shoveling While Black –> Former Major League player and current ESPN commentator Doug Glanville on being racially profiled while shoveling snow in your own driveway.
Pay to Play –> Olivia Nuzzi profiles former Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic, who has since become an activist fighting money in politics, for The Daily Beast.
Out of sight –> At The Guardian, Gary Blasi reports that Silicon Valley’s “1%” want to bar the homeless from sleeping in their cars, despite the fact that cities are coming up short with help.
Myth busting –> Matt Bruenig takes a hard look at the “single mother, child poverty myth” for Demos’ Policy Shop blog.
Some folks are catching a break –> AlterNet’s Alex Kane on six countries that are experimenting with ways to make life better for their working majorities.
That’s just weird –> At TPM, Sahil Kapur points to several conservative media figures who believe that an incident in which a woman threw a shoe at Hillary Clinton was staged to make her seem “presidential.” No, it doesn’t make much sense.
