Republicans are in real danger of getting something they badly want. Except that they are just realizing that if they get it, it will backfire badly on them. Rock, meet hard place! One of the cornerstones of the Republican party over the last 6 years has been to oppose everything Obama does (even if it […]
Rand Paul (R-KY) took to the Senate floor for 10 hours and 30 minutes to protest the reauthorization of the Patriot Act, which would continue the widespread spying on ordinary Americans by the NSA. There was some discussion about whether this actually constituted a filibuster under Senate rules, but at least he actually got up […]
Now here’s a good one. Yesterday, Jeb Bush congratulated the US Special Forces who killed a top ISIS leader, but he continued to blame the Obama administration for the “void that created this emerging caliphate that is far bigger than anything that existed before and there is no long-term strategy on how to deal with […]
“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, […]
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