“Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign announced that it raised over $1.5 million in the 24 hours after he announced his bid. Meanwhile, a 12-year-old on Kickstarter just raised $7 million in five minutes after announcing his idea for juice box water guns.” – Jimmy Fallon “Today Carly Fiorina announced that she is running for president. Someone […]
Benjamin Franklin said “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” Those words are even more true today. Too often when we hear about security, it is in the context of the NSA and other agencies forcing manufacturers to install “backdoors” on the computers they […]
© Jen Sorensen I am an unapologetic capitalist, but even I understand that there are some things that capitalism is not the best way to handle. Like, once upon a time, we tried having a free market for fire extinguishing companies, and we ended up with people who hadn’t bought any fire protection having their […]
The Second Circuit US Court of appeals has ruled that the NSA cannot perform mass surveillance of telephone records anymore. The legal analysis by the EFF is a short read and definitely worth it. But if you are too lazy to read that, here is the tl;dr version from BoingBoing: 1. When Congress gave the […]
© Tom Tomorrow I think if nothing else, Obama’s presidency has been worth it to highlight both how far we have come, but even more importantly how far we still have to go to end racism. I remember when it first became unfashionable to be racist. When people started using code words instead of being […]
© Alex Salsberg This reminds me of the Chick-fil-A scandal in 2012 when the founders of the company said they supported the biblical definition of marriage and contributed to anti-gay organizations. LGBT organizations boycotted the business, but religious conservatives flocked to the chain to show their support. So who knows, maybe some people would contribute […]
© Jen Sorensen Apparently the entire state of Texas, all the way up to the governor, has gone completely ape shit crazy. Who better to explain what is going on than Jon Stewart? Note that (if you are in a big hurry) the part specifically about Jade Helm starts around the 5 minute mark.
So what has the new Republican majority in Congress done so far? Well, first they were distracted for months by the confirmation of Loretta Lynch. Even though many Republicans actually liked her, the powerful GOP need to not do anything that Obama wants was strong enough for them to delay her confirmation longer than any […]
This comic was originally published in The Birmingham News (Alabama). Some unknown critic took exception. Yes, we have come a long way, but we still have a long way to go.
One of my favorite writers, Matt Taibbi, has written a wonderful article in Rolling Stone about Bernie Sanders, our “other” Democratic presidential candidate. Or as Taibbi puts it: His entrance into the 2016 presidential race is a great thing and not a mere footnote to the inevitable coronation of Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee. […]
© Scott Bateman The Koch brothers are being courted heavily by conservative candidates for the presidency. First prize is reportedly close to a Billion dollars (yes, that is with a capital B) to spend on their campaigns. It appears that their current favorite is Scott Walker, the union busting, budget slashing, anti-gay, anti-immigrant governor of […]
This is a map showing incarceration rate (number of prisoners per 100,000 population). Note that it doesn’t even include all prisoners in the US — it leaves out prisoners in juvenile detention, prisoners held in US Territories (which I presume includes Guantanamo), jails contracted by the US Marshals Service, and jails in Indian country. Actually, […]
The Washington Post has a very scary article about the FBI forensic unit, the people like those we have all seen in movies who analyze hairs and other physical evidence to establish guilt or innocence. This kind of evidence is frequently used in capital cases, such as rape or murder. Unlike in the movies, the […]
Last week, on tax day, Florida postal worker Doug Hughes managed to land his small, slow-moving gyrocopter on the lawn of the US Capitol, in one of the most protected airspaces in the world. Many publications are focusing on the fact that he was able to evade our entire national defense system, but that should […]
The Guardian just published a good story and interview with Jon Stewart. It is definitely worth a read for people who want to know more about him, and what the future may hold. Here’s one paragraph to whet your appetite: When George Bush left office in 2008, some worried that Stewart would run out of […]
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