Religion and Politics, Theocracy, Atheism, ACLU, Bible Studies

Religion and Politics

• American Family Association: The First Amendment Only Applies To Christians
• FFRF exposes Gov. Perry’s rally robocalls
• Rick Warren Derides The Tax Paying Poor As His Church Pays No Taxes
• Religious Conservatives Are Using The Bible To Deny Equal Protection To All Citizens
• Surprising support for separating church from state--"A whopping 67 percent of the American people agree that the First Amendment 'requires a clear separation of church and state'...."
• The Daily Show: In the Name of the Fodder--"The Fox News rapid-response team distinguishes violence in the name of a religion from the practitioners of that religion -- as long as it's Christianity."
• 15 Awful Examples of Christian Propaganda

Theocracy

• God's Own Warden--"If you ever find yourself inside Louisiana's Angola prison, Burl Cain will make sure you find Jesus—or regret ever crossing his path."
• America's own Taliban
• The Terrifying Christian Right
• Theocracy in America: Should we be more worried about radical Islamists or Christian fundamentalists?
• Religious Groups I'm Afraid Of

Atheism

• Information and facts about secularism and religion
• Austrian driver's religious headgear strains credulity
• Atheists Object to '9/11 Cross'

ACLU

• ACLU defends Floyd athletes over Ten Commandments
• ACLU: Native American teen suspended for long hair
• Alston & Bird Assists ACLU in Protecting Religious Freedom in California Prisons

Bible Studies

• The Rise and Fall of the Bible: The Unexpected History of an Accidental Book
• God's Wife Edited Out of the Bible -- Almost
• If Jesus Were Bisexual--"New James Frey novel: The Final Testament of the Holy Bible is a bombshell hurled at the religious right"

'Hill' Debt Rips U.S. Apart, Copyright, DMCA, Fair Use, Piracy

'Hill' Debt Rips U.S. Apart

• U.S. Senate Kills House Debt Limit Increase, Advancing Own Plan
• Born-again thrift brings US undone
• A Few More Charts That Should Accompany All Debt Ceiling Discussions

Copyright

• The Copyright Lobby Absolutely Loves Child Pornography--"Child pornography is great.... Politicians do not understand file sharing, but they understand child pornography, and they want to filter that to score points with the public. Once we get them to filter child pornography, we can get them to extend the block to file sharing."
• US ISP/copyright deal: a one-sided private law for corporations, without public interest
• Smear Campaign Ramps Up Against Those Who Believe Free Speech Is More Important Than Hollywood's Obsolete Business Model
• Major ISPs agree to "six strikes" copyright enforcement plan
• Video Gamers Realizing Streaming Criminalization Bill Might Make A Lot Of Them Into Criminals
• Law Professors Come Out Against PROTECT IP--Read the letter.
• France suspends three-strikes copyright law after massive data-leak

DMCA

• DMCA takedowns: trampling on free speech rights?
• Removal of Printed Photo Credit Qualifies as DMCA Violation, Court Says
• Google submission hammers section 92A--"In its submission, Google notes that more than half (57%) of the takedown notices it has received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998, were sent by business targeting competitors and over one third (37%) of notices were not valid copyright claims."
• Wikileaks Cables Show Massive U.S. Effort to Establish Canadian DMCA
• So if TIME Magazine, DC Comics and Platon Didn't Send Flickr a DMCA Takedown Notice Over the Obama Joker Image, Who Did?
• Not Smart: Warner Music Issues DMCA Takedown On Larry Lessig Presentation
• Lawyer Trying To Trademark Bitcoin Threatens Techdirt With Bogus DMCA Takedown
  

Fair Use

• Kind of Screwed--Too bad Andy Baio got bullied into settling something he could have won on the basis of Fair Use.
• Why @Peanutweeter Should Be Considered Fair Use
• Copyright, fair use and education in the Chronicle of Higher Education
• Copyright Lawyers Sue Lawyer Who Helped Copyright Defendants
• Fair Use Bolstered by Student-Cheating Detection Service
• Senators Want To Put People In Jail For Embedding YouTube Videos
• YouTube vs. Fair Use

Piracy Pays Off

• Final Ruling Confirms ‘Pirate’ Sites Act Lawfully in Spain
• Suppressed Report Found Busted Pirate Site Users Were Good Consumers
• Former Google CIO: Music piracy was great for iTunes

Looming Debt-line, Taxing, Wikileaks, Manning

Looming Debt-line

• House Puts Off Debt Vote as Press by Boehner Fails NYT
• Annihilating Democracy with the Tea Party--"Democracy depends on compromise and the American government depends on all branches working together. The Tea Party movement shuns both, preferring instead to drive the state into bankruptcy. On principle."
• Boehner: 'A Lot' Of Republicans Want To Force Default, Create 'Enough Chaos' To Pass Balanced Budget Amendment
• Gut Check Time for John Boehner--Is it the end for him (Salon)?
• Republicans' Debt Ceiling Charade Is Downright Dangerous
• The Centrist Cop-Out--"The problem with American politics right now is Republican extremism, and if you’re not willing to say that, you’re helping make that problem worse." And watch Krugman kick Brooks's ass on Charlie Rose. NYT
• Could the debt ceiling standoff backfire for Republicans?
• Boehner and Reid's Big Overlap and Bigger Sticking Points
• The Daily Show: GOP - Special Victims Unit--" Conservative pundits hate it when liberals play the victim card because it distracts from the real victims: conservatives."
• Obama Impersonator Reggie Brown Finishes Off the GOP On Real Time

Taxing

• Tax fairness: Little income, little to tax
• Why Americans Are So Angry--"The rich are getting richer. Their effective tax rate, in recent years, has been reduced to the lowest in modern history. Nurses, teachers and firemen actually pay a higher tax rate than some billionaires. It's no wonder the American people are angry."
• Why Do Some People Pay No Federal Income Tax?

Wikileaks

• Wikileaks' MasterCard "priceless" ad parody
• Visa Says It Has Closed Channel to WikiLeaks Site After Briefly Accepting Donations
• WikiLeaks Planning Legal Action Against PayPal, MasterCard & Visa

Manning

• Bradley Manning, the Person: The Making of the World's Most Notorious Leaker
• Ethan McCord On 'New York' Magazine Profile of Bradley Manning: It 'Erases' His Political Motives
• Manning-Lamo Chat Logs Revealed

Land of the 'Freeze, put your hands up!', Excessive Force, Caught on Tape, Retaliatory

Land of the 'Freeze, put your hands up!'

• King George III Won: Happy Fourth of July!
• Free to Search and Seize--"The Fourth Amendment is weaker than it was 50 years ago, and this should worry everyone. 'Uncontrolled search and seizure is one of the first and most effective weapons in the arsenal of every arbitrary government,' Justice Robert H. Jackson, the former chief United States prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, wrote in 1949. 'Among deprivations of rights, none is so effective in cowing a population, crushing the spirit of the individual and putting terror in every heart.'" NYT
• The Long Con: Anatomy of a Two-Year Undercover Sting and What It Has to Do with Law Enforcement’s Habit of Wasting Large Amounts of Money on Investigating People for Their Social Habits and Political Beliefs
• The American Police State is the 'New Normal'
• Louisiana Supreme Court Allows Vehicle Searches on a Hunch
• People in threatened societies are more conformist
• DOJ: We can force you to decrypt that laptop--Not so fast, says encryption defense attorney Phil Dubois.
  

Excessive Force

• Man Paralyzed After Police Taser, 10-Foot Fall
• Cops smash window of men who won’t comply at sobriety checkpoint
• Police Confront Broward Judge at Gunpoint
• Dallas Officer Fired, Faces Charge of Official Oppression--His own supervisor was the one who turned him in.
• Another Isolated Incident

Caught on Tape

• Police accountability activists and their supporters celebrate court victory
• Why Citizens MUST Retain the Right to Video Police
• Newark Cop: "I Can Do Whatever the Hell I Want"
• Suspects, witness dispute police version of July 1 arrest in Nashua
• Corrupt Cop abuses his authority
• Expecting Privacy In Public--"Should we ever expect to have a right to privacy when we're in public? I don't think so; cops are public employees."
• "I love the OPD"--Jonathan Swift-worthy.

Retaliatory

• Copwatcher Founder Convicted For Resisting Arrest In Missing Camera Case--"John Kurtz, the Orlando Copwatch founder who was facing six years in prison for battery on a law enforcement officer, was acquitted of that felony charge last week. But he was convicted of resisting arrest without violence – even though the officer testified he was not resisting – proving once again that Florida has an unethical and unconstitutional habit of dishing out resisting arrest convictions without underlying charges to justify the arrest in the first place."
• Rochester police use selective enforcement of parking laws to harass attendees at a meeting in support of Emily Good
• Criminal charges against Emily Good (citizen arrested for videotaping police traffic stop) have been dropped.

Norway, Murdoch, Vote Machinations, Rand, Bachmann

Norway

• Killings in Norway Spotlight Anti-Muslim Thought in U.S.--"The man accused of the killing spree in Norway was deeply influenced by a small group of American bloggers and writers who have warned for years about the threat from Islam, lacing his 1,500-page manifesto with quotations from them, as well as copying multiple passages from the tract of the Unabomber." NYT
• Glenn Beck Compares The Youth Camp Attacked In Norway To The Hitler Youth--Stay classy Beck.
• Fox News Refuses To Acknowledge Norway Shooter's Right-Wing Beliefs
• Bill O'Reilly: Media Labeling Norway Killer Breivik 'Christian' Because 'They Don't Like Christians'
• Colbert Report: Norwegian Muslish Gunman's Islam-Esque Atrocity

Murdoch

• James Murdoch’s Defense Crumbles--"Rupert Murdoch’s heir apparent looks like the scandal’s next victim (NYT) after claiming ignorance about phone hacking—only to be reversed by two ex-employees."
• Murdoch Veterans Portray an Engaged Boss--Instead of Mr. Passing-the-Buck NYT
• Murdoch: This scandal has exposed the scale of elite corruption--Cameron wants to bury the collusion uncovered in the hacking revelations but it's part of a growing crisis of official Britain
• Phone hacking inquiry judge attended parties at home of Rupert Murdoch's son-in-law
• Phone-hacking scandal has exposed a culture of bullying and intimidation at News International--News Corp really wanted the BSkyB bid to push through.
• Murdoch interview could have been tougher, admits WSJ special committee--"Body that oversees paper's editorial integrity says it was slow to cover story, but is now making up with 'aggressive coverage'"
• What’s the Deal With News Corp’s Other, U.S.-Based, Hacking Scandal?

Vote Machinations

• Bill Clinton: GOP Voting Crackdown Worst Since Jim Crow
• 11 States Trying Really Hard to Keep Poor, Black, and Student Voters From Voting
• After Signing Law Disenfranchising ID-less Voters, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker Closes 10 DMV Offices--But it doesn't stop there.
• Billionaires give big to new 'super PACS'--Group spearheaded by Karl Rove vows massive attack ad campaign to defeat President Barack Obama next year
• Campaign Reformers Say Stephen Colbert's FEC Joke Has Gone Far Enough
• Stephen Colbert's Super PAC Wouldn't Report Donations Until 2012
• Supreme Court imposes limits on public funding of campaigns--Kagan says it's 'chutzpah'
• Foreign Company Admits Illegal Cash Donations to U.S. State Campaigns
• New court filing reveals how the 2004 Ohio presidential election was hacked
• Gerrymandering Explained

Rand

• Ayn Rand's Poison: GOP Faces Backlash for Their Obsessive Worship of a Psycho
• You can't reconcile Ayn Rand and Jesus
• To See Through the Deceit-- From Libertarianism to Liberalism
• Producer Admits Atlas Shrugged: Part I Basically A Failure--"[I]sn't this really just an example of the free market in action?"
• How Ayn Rand ruined my childhood Salon

Bachmann

• Bachmann Vows to End Nonexistent Federal Program
• Bachmann pledges to ban pornography
• "There are plenty of good reasons to question Michele Bachmann’s fitness for the presidency, including but not limited to: her thin record of legislative achievement, her blatant hypocrisy in opposing government spending while her family accepts farm subsidies and government grants, and her bigotry."

Debt-erminations, GOP, The Rich, Class War, Financial Crisis, The American People

Debt-erminations

• Debt limit: Obama blames House Republicans for impasse--Read Obama's remarks.
• The Chart That Should Accompany All Discussions of the Debt Ceiling
• Steve King on default: Obama could be impeached--Probably what they're planning to do to disrupt 2012.
• Plutocracy: If Corporations and the Rich Paid 1960s-Level Taxes, the Debt Would Vanish
• Unfavorable Ratings for Both Major Parties Near Record Highs NYT

GOP

• GOP refuses to accept victory in surreal debt ceiling fight
• In 200+ Days The House GOP Has Voted To Kill 1.9 Million Jobs And Created 0
• Real Talk: The GOP's Debt Ceiling Stance Is Economic Nonsense
• Washington Isn't Broken, the Republican Party Is
• The Republicans exit history--"Here are some of the issues on which the GOP is out of step with most Americans"

Oh, That's Rich

• An Investment Manager's View on the Top 1%
• Why the Wealthiest Americans Are the Real 'Job-Killers'
• The 400 Richest Americans Pay An 18% Tax Rate
• The rich get richer: And the argument not to tax them gets smaller--The average American worker "pay rose 0.5 percent from 2009 to 2010, as opposed to the 23 percent increase the executives received."
• CEOs to Workers: More for Me, Less for You
• A Boom in Corporate Profits, a Bust in Jobs, Wages
• Job creators...

Class War

• Saving 'Small Business' In The U.S.
• The US Tax Burden Falls Disproportionately On Individuals and Small Business
• JP Morgan Tells Investors Why Middle Class Americans Are Screwed
• Wage theft a scourge for low-income workers
• Justice In America: A Tale Of Two Crimes

Financial Crisis

• How Moody's sold its ratings - and sold out investors
• The Banks Keep Stealing - Why Should You Keep Paying?
• The Destruction of Economic Facts

The American People

• Half of Americans Getting Government Aid Swear They've Never Used Government Programs--And they have no clue how just how much the government actually helps them.
• Corporate America’s chokehold on wages--"If you’re wondering why American consumers are still flat on their backs, rendering the economy similarly supine, the answer is both fundamental and simple: It’s not just that so many of them are unemployed. The ones who are employed are also underpaid."
• Romney: Jobless Americans have to bear burden of budget cuts because corporations need a tax cut
• Peacock Syndrome - America's Fatal Disease
• An informed electorate… just about the wrong things

Debt-rimental Developments, Marriage Equality, Bachmann, Politics, DADT

Debt-rimental Developments

• "So President Obama — perhaps with some backstopping from Democrats in Congress — has his limits. And he seemed genuinely angry. Good." NYT
• Boehner, Reid work on partisan debt plans
• Eric Cantor's glaring conflict of interest--He's the GOP's chief debt ceiling negotiator. He's also invested in a fund that will skyrocket if there's a default Salon
• How the Deficit Got This Big NYT
• Asian markets fall on U.S. debt crisis

Marriage Equality

• Gay weddings: In New York, gay weddings held as new law takes effect
• N.Y. Republicans who backed gay marriage see coffers, criticism soar
• Franken Destroys Focus On The Family Witness, Exposes Misuse Of HHS Study--"I checked the study out … and it actually doesn't say what you said it says."
• Obama endorses Feinstein bill to repeal Defense of Marriage Act
• Rhode Island legislature passes civil union bill
• David Frum admits he was wrong about gay marriage
• Church of England to review same-sex relationships policy
• Gillard stops aussies from marrying in New York--"Julia Gillard again refuses to authorise same sex marriages in New York and does not budge on same sex marriages being illegal in Australia."
• Vatican Reverses Stance On Gay Marriage After Meeting Tony And Craig The Onion

Bachmann and Teh Gay

• The Teen Suicide Epidemic in Michele Bachmann's District--Two years. Nine suicides. Why critics blame the congresswoman's anti-gay allies for contributing to a mental health crisis.
• Reports: Bachmann's clinic performs 'ex-gay' therapy--They been caught on tape.
• Michele Bachmann in Her Own Words: 'Gays Are Part of Satan'
• Bachmann’s Husband Calls Homosexuals ‘Barbarians’ Who ‘Need To Be Educated’ And ‘Disciplined’--Watch Jerry Seinfeld give Jon Steward some comedy repression therapy
• Gay "barbarians" descend on Bachmann's clinic Salon
• Gay Republicans are a joke: GOP Proud supports Bachmann--They're fucking delusional.

Politics

• Hartzler Stands By Her Anti-Gay Comments
• Virginia Foxx adds anti-gay amendment to Defense Appropriations Bill
• GLAAD President Jarrett Barrios resigns amid AT&T scandal--Things just got from GLAAD to worse, and now they've dropped their support for the merger.

The end to 'don't ask, don't tell' follows shifting public attitudes--Officially over on 20 September 2011.

Norway, Playing Politics, Environment

Norway

• Norway PM: "The Answer to Violence is even More Democracy"
• The Washington Post Owes the World an Apology for this Item--Seems to have lied about Al Qaeda's involvement to scare more people into freaking out over terrorism.
• Lawyer: Norway Suspect Wanted A Revolution--The right-wing Christian fundamentalist says the massacre (NYT) was 'atrocious but necessary'.

Playing Politics

• Congress Must Eliminate Its Own Pensions, Reduce Its Salaries -- Before Cutting a Dime From Middle Class Entitlements
• Vince Cable attacks 'rightwing nutters' over US debt ceiling talk--Business secretary says those trying to derail efforts to raise ceiling are bigger threat to world economy than eurozone crisis
• 'Super Congress': Debt Ceiling Negotiators Aim To Create New Legislative Body
• CNN Poll: Drop in liberal support pushes Obama approval rating down
• American Exceptionalism Fuels Republican Obstructionism

Government and the Environment

• This Hero Didn’t Stand a Chance--"Tim DeChristopher is scheduled to be sentenced... on July 26. He faces up to 10 years in prison and a $750,000 fine for fraudulently bidding in December 2008 on parcels of land, including areas around eastern Utah’s national parks, which were being sold off by the Bush administration to the oil and natural gas industry."
• Water-Regulation-As-Federalism Bill Passes House, Looks A Lot Like ALEC--"After being fast tracked by a House panel and passing the House last week, a bill that would strip fundamental powers of the EPA to regulate water toxins crept closer to a Senate vote."
• Who are polluters' best friends in Congress?--A report names 15 members of Congress who have prevented the EPA from improving coal power plant standards. Salon
• Under the radar attack on state parks
• GOP fails to turn off light bulb standards
• Republicans Use Appropriations Bill To Push Uranium Mining Around The Grand Canyon
• Bachmann’s Pledge To Eliminate The EPA Is Fueled By Koch
• In The Know: Coal Lobby Warns Wind Farms May Blow Earth Off Orbit The Onion

Just Business

• Big Coal: Inbreeding, Not Mining, to Blame for Birth Defects--No, not an Onion article.
• Nine Out of Ten Climate Denying Scientists Have Ties to Exxon Mobil Money
• Car makers oppose fuel standards that would save consumers $150 billion and is supported by 75% of Americans
• Feds: Massey faked mine records to deceive safety inspectors
• BP Wins a Big One in Oil Spill Litigation--But they got dinged big time for the 2006 Alaskan spill.
• Preventing radiation contamination more important than TEPCO's stock prices--The Tokyo Eelectro Power Company has a resisted a move to construct an underground dam to contain the radiation from the Fukushima plant.
• Judge Tosses Out Massive Ground Poisoning Class Action Against Dow Chemical

World's oceans in 'shocking' decline--As the saying never went, There's no more fish in the sea.

Debt Charges, Abortion, Birth Control

Debt Charges

• Speaker Boehner Drops Out of Debt Talks--How the debt deal probably fell through.
• John Boehner’s move plays to House--Tea Partiers want the US to default, the country be damned.
• Silent majority fed up with Washington

Abortion

• Judge Blocks South Dakota's Abortion Counseling Law
• Oregon Official Denies Woman’s Abortion Request, Compares It To Wanting A Boob Job
• 15-Year-Old Girl Faces Life in Prison for a Miscarriage? Why Conservatives Are Criminalizing Pregnant Women
• Pregnant Women Who Lose Babies Face Criminal Charges In Mississippi, Alabama
  
• Under New Law, Kansas May Become First State Where A Woman Cannot Get An Abortion
• Rick Santorum: When the Anti-Choice Choose
• Ban upheld on anti-abortion activists approaching pregnancy centre visitors--"A German court has told anti-abortion campaigners they must not speak to women near a pregnancy advice centre in Freiburg, in the conclusion of a months-long conflict."
• "If abortion is murder..."

Birth Control

• Rick Perry Asked Why More Kids Are Getting Pregnant in Texas--The answer: Abstince-only Education.
• IOM Report: Birth Control Should Be Free
• Michele Bachmann Calls Planned Parenthood A Criminal Organization
• New Hampshire Defunds Planned Parenthood, Tells Women: If You Want To Party, ‘Don’t Ask Me To Pay For It’
• Anti-Abortion Groups Push To Outlaw Contraceptives By Redefining Personhood

Debt, Murdoch, Prison

Til Debt Do They Part

• Barack Obama is gutting the core principles of the Democratic party
• "This Senator Is Going to Fight Back"--Sen. Bernie Sanders says he "was not elected to the United States Senate to make devastating cuts in Social Security, in Medicare, in Medicaid, in children's programs, while lowering tax rates for the wealthiest people in this country." He also had the Government Accountability Office conduct a study that revealed "the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world."
• Out from under the anti-tax pledge--A vote for letting the Bush temporary tax cuts expire.

Murdoch

• Twitter rages: Murdoch's Times of London famine cartoon 'most offensive' thing yet?--Pathetic attempt at deflection.
• James Murdoch misled MPs, say former NoW editor and lawyer
• 7 Wall St. Journal opinion pieces support Murdoch

Prison Industrial Complex

• The Pentagon and Slave Labor in U.S. Prisons
• Private Prisons Spend Millions to Put More People in Jail
• Prison Economics Help Drive Ariz. Immigration Law
• Report: Private prison companies boost incarceration rates for profit
• ‘Prison Math’ and the War on Drugs
• Defense Contractors Using Prison Labor to Build High-Tech Weapons Systems
• High court to Calif: Cut prison inmates by 33,000

Jail Tales

• Prisoners Near Death As 1,700 California Inmates Continue Hunger Strike To Protest Appalling Conditions--It had gone up to three weeks.
• Guards admit to beating N.C. inmate
• Mass Incarceration
• Supreme Court Allows Inmates to Sue for DNA Testing--This is great news for those wrongfully accused convicts, but is harvesting DNA from arrestees constitutional?
• Prison doctor gets paid for doing little or nothing--"A California surgeon has mostly been locked out of his job: on paid leave, fired or fighting his termination. When he does work,it's reviewing records. He made $777,000 last year, including back pay."
• Dungeons and Dragons Threatens Prison Security, Court Rules
• Angelo's agony: Dutch prisoner 'too big for cell'
• World's poshest prison?--"'When they arrive many of them are in bad shape and we want to build them up, give them confidence through education and work and have them leave as better people.' [...] In Norway only 20 per cent of prisoners end up back in jail after release, compared to between 50 and 60 per cent in the UK."

Debt and Taxes, News Corpse, TSA: Totalitarian States of America

Debt and Taxes

• Top Republicans Push Away From Gang Of Six Plan--Because Obama took credit for it. So much for the charade being almost over.
• Bernie Sanders on'Gang of Six' Plan: 'Not So Fast'--He also said it was a 'disaster'.
• Corporate Tax Holiday in Debt Ceiling Deal: Where's the Uproar?
• Delayed payments in 1979 offer glimpse of default consequences
• Oh, the Fun You Can have With a Debt Debate!
• A visualization of US Debt in 100 dollar bills
• Armadebtdon 2011 - National Bulls**t Ceiling

News Corpse

• News International 'deliberately' blocked investigation--"Rupert Murdoch's News International company has been found by a parliamentary committee to have "deliberately" tried to block a Scotland Yard criminal investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World."
• Rupert Murdoch Passes the Buck in His Testimony to Parliament
• Detectives seize computer found in bin near Brooks flat
• Rupert Murdoch's Fox News ran 'black ops' department, former executive claims
• If News Corp was a liberal outfit, it would have been shredded by now

TSA: Totalitarian States of America

• TSA Blasted for Checked Baggage Scans, Security Breaches--Two reports critical of the TSA were released this week, the first "highlights the TSA's failure to conduct risk assessments for 87% of US airports..." and the second "revealed that there were 25,000 breaches of TSA security since 2001, including weapons brought on planes."
• TSA warns of implant bombers, prepares fliers for swab tests--This has gone beyond ridiculous. This is just sad.
• Mission Creep at TSA Accelerates
• A new way to cut the airport security line--"You'll have to pay, so the new TSA program is likely to be a good value only for people who fly a lot. And it might not be great for them."
• Did Airport Scanners Give Boston TSA Agents Cancer?
• TSA Agent Caught With Passenger's iPad in His Pants; Allegedly Took $50,000 in Other Goods, Cops Say
• Time to Close the Security Theater

Encounters

• Police charge mother in Nashville airport altercation: Woman refused to let officers screen daughter
• Elderly woman asked to remove adult diaper during TSA search
• Woman Gropes TSA Agent's Breast at Security Checkpoint
• Man Takes Viagra, Wears Sweatpants for TSA Pat Down
• Summer travel means prepare for the pat down

Porn Scanners

• Federal Appeals Court: TSA Violated Federal Law, Must Take Public Comment on Body Scanners
• Federal Court Rules That TSA ‘Naked Scans’ Are Constitutional
• TSA introduces software that uses less-revealing body scanner images

GOP and the Debt, Financial Crisis, Banks, Foreclosures

GOP and the Debt

• Poll: Americans Unimpressed With GOP in Debt Talks
• The GOP Has Double Amnesia--"As Republicans obstruct Obama on a debt deal, they seem to have forgotten they and Bush ran up huge deficits, and that they helped spur a crisis by not properly regulating big business and financial markets."
• How the GOP is winning the debt ceiling fight Salon
• Tea Party Zombies Push Republican Party into Boston Harbor
• Roots of the Republican Anti-Government Reflex and the Debt Ceiling Crisis

Financial Crisis

• Letting Bankers Walk--"Ever since the current economic crisis began, it has seemed that five words sum up the central principle of United States financial policy: go easy on the bankers." NYT
• Rolling Back the Progressive Era: How Bankers are using the Debt Crisis to welcome in the Financial Road to Serfdom
• How Darrell Issa's Investigation Into Financial Crisis Commission Backfired On GOP
• Financial Crisis Commissioners Leaked Information to Lobbyists--"House Democrats on Wednesday accused two Republicans who served on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission of leaking sensitive material during the course of the group’s yearlong probe."
• Obama bypassing Warren for consumer bureau, officials say--Maybe she can be drafted to run for Senate.
• Congressman Who Harassed Elizabeth Warren Showered With Donations From Banks And Predatory Lenders
• As a Watchdog Starves, Wall Street Is Tossed a Bone--The The House Appropriations Committee is "starving the agency responsible for bringing financil wrongdoers to justice — while putting over $200 million that could otherwise have been spent on investigations and enforcement actions back into the pockets of Wall Street." NYT

Banks

• Senate Votes Against Delay of Debit Fee Limits--Helping the merchants. NYT
• Banks' check-clearing policies could leave you with overdrafts---"Banks are forcing some of us to overdraw more often by clearing the largest transactions first, instead of processing them in the order they come in."
• Citi Credit Card Hack Bigger Than Originally Disclosed--"Citigroup has been forced to reveal that a recent hack of its network exposed the financial data of more than 360,000 customers, a much higher number than the bank originally disclosed."
• Jailed for cashing Chase check at Chase bank--After getting so much bad press, they had to apologize for having him thrown in jail.
• Whoops! Chase repos wrong car--"Chase’s special collections manager told me the reason the company took the car was because the previous owner did not complete his payments."
• How Banks Plan To Compete With Groupon--By selling your purchase history.
• Pensioner faces '£500,000 bill' to challenge bank

Foreclosed and many payments to go...

• Florida Foreclosure Fraud Investigators Allege Attorney General Fired Them For Aggressively Pursuing Banks
• Former Taylor Bean & Whitaker CEO indicted for massive fraud
• Elizabeth Warren: Mortgage Forms Should Be Comprehensible To Normal Human Beings--She would have been looking out for you.
• 'The Shady Ways People Are Losing Their Homes--Even If They Don't Have Mortgages
• Supreme Court Justice Schack hits HSBC for 'frivolous motion' in foreclosure, asks boss to explain
• Florida Kangaroo Foreclosure Courts Likely to Fold
• Man falls behind on payments, mortgage company has home trashed
• Neighbors Are Mad At Guy Who Got $300K House For $16
• Milwaukee homeowner paying on time, yet facing eviction
• Where's relief for homeowners who played by rules?

Murdoch, "Suicide" Squad, Torture, Profiteering, War on Terror

Murdoch by Numbers

• News of the World phone-hacking whistleblower found dead--"Death of Sean Hoare – who was first named journalist to allege Andy Coulson knew of hacking – not being treated as suspicious"
• Troubles That Money Can't Dispel--"Time and again in the United States and elsewhere, Mr. Murdoch's News Corporation has used blunt force spending to skate past judgment, agreeing to payments to settle legal cases and, undoubtedly more important, silence its critics." NYT
• Rupert Murdoch Has Gamed American Politics Every Bit as Thoroughly as Britain's
• Murdoch's legal, financial woes escalate
• A News Corp. Timeline: Two Weeks of Unrelenting Scandal--All started in 2002.

"Suicide" Squad--Based on a list of questionable deaths compiled by justicereform.

• Dr. David Kelley-- "Dr. Kelly had been singled out by the government as the likely source for a BBC report in late May that Downing Street inserted a claim exaggerating the threat of Saddam Hussein's weapons "
  
• Dr. Bruce Ivin--"As the BBC revealed in the wake of his passing, he had been the key source behind a story claiming intelligence on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction was 'sexed up.'"
• Margie Schoedinger--The woman who filed a rape lawsuit against George W. Bush "expired" on Sept. 22, 2003 via a gunshot wound to the head.
• Deborah Jean Palfrey--This "DC Madam", who ran an escort business for politicians and the like, hung herself.
• Gary Webb--He investigated the Contras in the 90s, and in 2004, he "was found dead from two gunshot wounds to the head, which the coroner's office judged a suicide."

Torture

• Torture crimes officially, permanently shielded Salon
• Obama and Holder Drop 99 of 101 CIA Torture Cases
• The books aren’t closed on Bush’s torture policy

Cashing in the on the War

• The Cost of the Republican Vision of Endless War
• Eisenhower's worst fears came true. We invent enemies to buy the bombs
• Afghanistan: U.S. Spends $20 Billion Per Year for Air Conditioning in Tents--Yes, that's in billions.
• Two Navy Ships That Cost $300 Million Are Headed To The Scrapyard Without Having Seen A Day Of Service
  
• Missing Iraq cash 'as high as $18bn'--"Iraq's parliament speaker tells Al Jazeera unaccounted reconstruction money is three times the reported $6.6bn." Another source says it's $8.7 billion. In any case, the billions of taxpayers' money.

War on Terror

• Fox's Eric Bolling: "I Don't Remember Any Terrorist Attacks On American Soil" Between 2000 And 2008
• Ted Gunderson Former FBI Chief - Most Terror Attacks Are Committed By Our CIA And FBI
• Ex-CIA official: Bush White House tried to 'get' Juan Cole
• CNN exposes 'terror expert' as a fraud
• Saleem Shahzad: Missing journalist found dead--Wrote about Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
• Did the CIA fake a vaccination campaign?-- Related: CIA's Fake Vaccination Drive Angers Public Health World
• McConnell On Casey Anthony Trial: It Means Terrorists Could Win--Scare-publicans at work.

Murdoch, Taxing the Rich, Workers and Jobs

Murdoch

• Dow Jones CEO quits, Murdoch apologizes in hacking scandal--"The chief executive officer of Dow Jones & Co., a man who once headed the Rupert Murdoch company at the center of the phone-hacking scandal, resigned Friday as Murdoch himself apologized for "serious wrongdoing" in an ad running in the British press this weekend."
• Revealed: Cameron's 26 meetings in 15 months with Murdoch chiefs
• Larry Flynt: Rupert Murdoch went too far
• FBI opens inquiry after report that News Corp. tried to hack phones of 9/11 victims --Will this mean the end of Fox News?
• Phone hacking: Murdoch paid US anti-bribery law lobbyists: £1m donation to US Chamber of Commerce in spotlight amid calls for prosecution of News Corp in America, where it is based
• How CNN, MSNBC, And Fox Are Covering News Corp. Hacking Scandal
• Fox And Friends Defends News Corp’s Hacking Scandal: 'We Should Move On'--"But their defense of News Corp. really got embarrassing when Dilenschneider and Doocy engaged in some stunning subject/object slight of hand, comparing News Corp. to companies that have been hacked, while failing to note it was News Corp. that did the hacking in this case." What else can you expect from "Fox and Frauds"?

Taxing the Rich

• Latest Quinnipiac Poll: Voters say 67 - 25 percent that an agreement to raise the debt ceiling should include tax hikes for the wealthy and corporations, not just spending cuts
• Why America’s 30-year experiment with trickle-down economics has failed
• The Rich Are Now Richer Than Before The 2008 Credit Meltdown
• In 12 Years, Income For Richest 400 Americans Quadruples, Tax Rate Nearly Halved
• The Truth About Taxes: Here's How High Today's Rates Really Are

Nice Work, If You Can Find it

• Why the GOP's 'Job Creators' Are Hard to Find
• Lower taxes on the rich don't lead to job growth
• 2000s: Stagnant Wages and Zero Net Jobs Created

Workers

• Nearly Half of Americans Are 'Financially Fragile'
• BMW layoffs exemplify the evisceration of the middle class
• 40 Facts That Prove The Working Class Is Being Systematically Wiped Out
• As Wages Stagnate, The Typical American Family Is Working 26 Percent Longer Than In 1975
• Squeezed Dry: Why Americans Work So Hard but Feel So Poor
• The American Puppet
• Miracle Baby Born With Job The Onion

Jobs

• Supreme Court: Pair of Supreme Court rulings deal blows to business
• Legislature Approves Pair of Controversial Bills--One bill "outlawing discrimination against people who identify themselves as transgender" and another mandating that "private employers must provide their workers with paid sick days." Why are these even considered controversial?
• Thank a Union: 36 Ways Unions Have Improved Your Life

Debt and Corporations

Til Debt Do They Part

• Public rejects GOP on debt, blames economy on Bush
• Getting to Crazy--"So there has been no pressure on the G.O.P. to show any kind of responsibility, or even rationality — and sure enough, it has gone off the deep end. If you’re surprised, that means that you were part of the problem." NYT
• GOP Demand Obama Protect Seniors From Default, Won’t Name What To Cut Instead--They're desperate not to have the seniors turn on them again.
• Yes, I'll dare call it treason: The Republican Party no longer has its country's best interests at heart - and Americans suffer as a result.
• Dicing with debt and the future: The Theory of Inevitable Compromise, and why it is probably wrong
• Top Dems To Cantor: Get Real Or Go Home--Cantor is America's "most dangerous whiner".
• "McConnell is arguing that the true conservative position in this debate is to favor whichever policy is likeliest to lead to Obama's defeat in 2012."
• Sen. Al Franken shreds the Republican economic theory
• GOP Senator: Maybe We Shouldn't Have Tied Debt Vote To Deficit Deal
• Graham: GOP has no one 'to blame but ourselves'--"South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham conceded Wednesday that he and his fellow Republicans are now eating their own words as they try to convince the country they are working to stave off a federal default."

Corporatocracy

• ALEC Exposed--"It is a worrisome marriage of corporations and politicians, which seems to normalize a kind of corruption of the legislative process -- of the democratic process--in a nation of free people where the government is supposed to be of, by, and for the people, not the corporations."
• Lobbyists are overtaking Congress: Since the GOP takeover, the number of lobbyists in congressional staff positions has more than doubled--Not only are corporations writing the bills, they're getting people inside. Salon
• Citigroup attempts to disappear its Plutonomy Report #2
• Supremely Un-American--They've been siding with corporations more often than ever.
• Movement to Abolish Corporate Personhood Gaining Traction

Just Business

• Goldman Sachs Is Firing Employees In The US So It Can Hire 1,000 In Singapore
• Cisco To Shed 10,000 Jobs While Asking For Giant Corporate Tax Break
  
• Caterpillar Accused of Demoting Executive Discovering $2 Billion Tax Dodge
• AP Exclusive: Nike faces new worker abuse claims--"Workers making Converse sneakers in Indonesia say supervisors throw shoes at them, slap them in the face and call them dogs and pigs. Nike, the brand's owner, acknowledges that such abuse has occurred among the contractors that make its hip high-tops but says there was little it could do to stop it."
  
• Pinto Madness--Way back in the 70s, Ford calculated the cost of a human life to gauge whether it was financially feasible not to recall their defective cars.

Debt and Politics; Murdoch and Fucks News

Debt and Taxes

• Obama walks out of stormy debt talks--"I've reached my limit. This may bring my presidency down, but I will not yield on this."
• U.S. Put On Review For Possible Credit Rating Downgrade By Moody's
• How Grover Norquist hypnotized the GOP
• American mainstream rejects GOP debt line
• Yes, the Tea Party is Insane

The Business of Politics

• The new "Let them eat cake!": 10 shocking, illuminating moments that prove just how out of touch the powerful really are Salon
• Obama's Original Sin: The president's failure to demand a reckoning from the moneyed interests who brought the economy down has cursed his first term, and could prevent a second.
• Smooth-Talking SOBs: What the rich guys and corporate types in Aspen think of Obama
• "Their goal? Exonerate their own bad behavior, throw off any responsibility for the collapse, blame anything but their own ideology and horrific decision making. They want to keep pushing their tired political agendas, despite the damage they may have caused."
• Inside Job--Takes a closer look at what brought about the financial meltdown.

Reuters Retraction

• Reuters Retracts Column Saying News Corp. Got Billions In Tax Refunds
• Reuters Columnist David Cay Johnston's No Good, Very Bad Day
• How I misread News Corp's taxes: David Cay Johnston

Murdoch by Numbers

• Murdoch media dynasty descends from deal to disaster--"These guys are on the run. They had no option but to drop the bid. But now the real issue is how to avoid further humiliation. They are in retreat with no real business in the UK anymore, just a set of disintegrating assets."
• Bancroft Family Members Express Regrets at Selling Wall Street Journal to Murdoch
• 9/11 families call for U.S. probe of Murdoch

Fucks News

• Like Pravda Covering Chernobyl: Fox News on the Murdoch Problems
• 14 Propaganda Techniques Fox 'News' Uses to Brainwash Americans
• The Fox Cycle in Action--"For almost three weeks, Fox News has tried desperately to manufacture a controversy in an attempt to silence a vocal critic. This is how Fox attacks groups they consider their ideological enemies."

Debt, Murdoch, Wisconsin, Texas and Local Politics

Debt and the GOP

• The real reason conservatives are angry at Obama
• Obama says he cannot guarantee Social Security checks will go out on August 3--"President Obama on Tuesday said he cannot guarantee that retirees will receive their Social Security checks August 3 if Democrats and Republicans in Washington do not reach an agreement on reducing the deficit in the coming weeks." Will the GOP's obstructionism finally backfire?
• Debt Crisis Deepens as Eric Cantor, GOP Propose New Cuts
• It's Now Official: The GOP is a Party of Sixth Graders
• A translation guide for nutty GOP debt ceiling rhetoric Salon
• Republicans' no-tax purity problem
• Cornyn coaches GOP recruits on how to rebut Dem debt limit criticism--Not like how they mishandled the Medicare message.

The Murdoch Mysteries

• Murdoch Ties Start to Chafe British Leader--Journalism is supposed to be be the watchdog of government yet it's like the government is now journalism's bitch. NYT
• How News Corp. Received Billions In Tax Refunds--The American taxpayers ended up paying them. UPDATE: The author has retracted his column.
• News Corp withdraws bid for BSkyB
• Keith Olbermann Details How Rupert Murdoch Blackmailed Him
• Senator John Rockefeller Calls for Investigation of News Corp--""I am concerned that the admitted phone hacking in London by the News Corp. may have extended to 9/11 victims or other Americans. If they did, the consequences will be severe." NYT

Wisconsin

• 6 fake Democrats fall, setting stage for GOP recalls--Here's a top Republican justifying running them in recall races.
• Report: Prosser grabbed fellow court justice's neck during argument
• Wis. Gov. signs budget cutting education $1.85B

Texas

• The darkest chapter of Rick Perry's career: Did the potential presidential hopeful sign off on the execution of an innocent man? Salon
• Rick Perry Doubled Texas’ Debt, Then Balanced Budget Through Accounting Gimmicks
• Rick Perry’s Texas Thumbs Its Nose At Treaty That Even North Korea and Iran Have Honored 

Local Politics

• Quartzsite in an uproar, in 'state of emergency' due to video on YouTube--Check out this quote: "[Mayor Ed Foster] said since being in office, he has discovered that every pay period, eight to 10 paychecks go to unnamed people and that he has been denied access to financial records to find out where the money goes at every turn. H esaid that's been happening since 1991 and amounts to $250,000 every year."
• Attorney says governor's budget cut is "retaliation" for her criticisms--"The chairman of a Newark program for abused children is accusing Gov. Chris Christie of personally targeting her when he cut $537,000 in funding for the program from the fiscal year 2012 budget."
• Former Temple City Mayor Sentenced to 4 Years in State Prison; Cathe Wilson Collapses in Court

News of the World

News of the World

• News Corp. Under Fire for 'Appalling' Phone-Hack Allegations
• Murdoch Facing Parliament’s Ire in Hacking Case NYT
• News of the World to close amid hacking scandal--Partly due to the number of advertisers who dropped the publication, but likely for more nefarious reasons.
• News of the World Crossword Takes Aim At Rebekah Brooks
• British government lawyers look to block BSkyB bid
• UK hacking scandal: Info kept on families of dead soldiers
• Phone hacking: Twitter campaign calls for News Corp boycott
• New Murdoch furore--"Gordon Brown’s sick son, the Queen and Prince Charles were sensationally identified on Monday night as targets of “institutional criminality” at Rupert Murdoch’s media empire."
• News Corp.’s Lost $7 Billion Shows Investor Concern Over Hacking Fallout

Phone hacking: 9/11 victims 'may have had mobiles tapped by News of the World reporters'--Scummy, if true.

Reactions

• What the papers won’t say: The omertà of Britain's press and politicians on phone-hacking amounts to complicity in crime
• Rupert Murdoch's phone-hacking scandal is unspooling like a film noir
• James Murdoch Could Be Prosecuted In Phone-Hacking Scandal -- News Corp Succession Plan Suddenly In Doubt
• Murdoch’s Watergate?
• Murdoch's malign influence must die with the News of the World

Double DADT

DADT: Debt and Deficit Talk

• Shame on them: The Republicans are playing a cynical political game with hugely high economic stakes
• Taxes and Billionaires--"Do we really want to close down the American government and risk another global financial crisis to protect the tax bills of billionaires?" NYT
• Wonkbook: Can the GOP still say 'yes'?--They said before they were open to 'raising revenue' and now they may have painted themselves into a corner.
• Senate Dems insist they'll protect Medicare in debt talks
• During Bush Presidency, Current GOP Leaders Voted 19 Times To Increase Debt Limit By $4 Trillion
• We have a Congress problem, not a deficit problem, in one graph
• The final nail in the supply side coffin: Taxes are low and corporate profits are high, but nothing is trickling down to the American worker Salon

DADT: Don't Ask, Don't Tell

• Military Suspends DADT And Will Now Accept Openly Gay Recruits
• Court bars enforcement of 'don't ask, don't tell'
• House: No gay weddings by military chaplains
• Soldier leaves legacy much larger than 'he was gay'
• "Which one is the gay one?"