I am so tired of the same ancient, wrinkled BS arguments against every single inch of progress we try to make as a nation. Gun debate? No problem, that one's easy, just cue up the argument that they're "trying to take away your guns." Health care reform?...
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In two previous pieces (here and here), I discussed the phenomena of scandal narratives in American politics, first stressing how such narratives reflect a right/left divide—emphasizing mythos (the construction of meaning) on the conservative side...
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Click here to view this media Very sad and tragic news on Michael Hastings passing: BuzzFeed is saddened to report that Michael Hastings died in a car accident early this morning in Los Angeles. He was 33. Ben Smith, BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief, said in...
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Click here to view this media For anyone that doesn't monitor the kind of B.S. that gets spouted on Fox "News" on a regular basis, I'll just say right off that bat that if I've heard a segment like this one once, I've heard it at least a few dozen times...
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You know how Texas Senator John Cornyn just hates, hates, hates government? But even worse how he hates people who get “entitlements” like social security and Medicare? Not so much in his own feedlot. Come to find out, the man is triple-dipping the...
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Looky here: Gov. Chris Christie won't be able to play games with that open Senate seat after all -- that is, if the courts uphold the law as written: TRENTON — Two liberal groups say they’ve found a “smoking gun” in a century-old state law that...
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Click here to view this media I'll bet you're thinking this is another post about bizarre Republican public statements, like Rep. Steve King's claim Democrats knew what websites Republicans were surfing. Or what Glenn Beck said about living in the end...
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Click here to view this media H/t Heather for the video. Right-wing mole Jonathan Karl did his best to encourage Sen. Marco Rubio to froth at the mouth over immigration reform by pointing to criticism from such noted intellects as Ann Coulter, Erick...
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No, it wasn't just bad luck when that Bank of America rep kept telling you they "never got the paperwork." We've been hearing these disgusting stories for a long time. Glad to hear they're making their way into court, where there's at least a chance...
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Click here to view this media Conservative radio host Glenn Beck told Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R) on Tuesday that immigrant activists have the "same ideology" as the Ku Klux Klan but they "are just changing their hood." Over the weekend,...
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Genre: CountryTitle: Bourbon in KentuckyArtist: Dierks Bentley Bourbon In Kentucky Price: $1.29 (As of 06/18/13 03:46 pm details) Dierks Bentley is readying the fall release of his next album, Riser, on Capitol Records Nashville. Here's the first release...
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Via OccupyWallSt: Liberate Space - July 4th - Cities Everywhere - Be Daring In a few weeks, on July 4th we call on all individuals to blockade, disrupt and disobey the architecture of repression in their own cities. We act against the surveillance state...
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Click here to view this media Cornel Rasor, who chairs the Idaho Republican Party's resolutions committee, says that he pushed for a resolution to void all local ordinances banning discrimination against LGBT people because he wants to be able to fire...
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An estimated 100,000 demonstrators (The BBC reports 200,000) flooded the streets of eight different Brazilian cities Monday night, venting frustrations over poor public services, police violence and government corruption. The marches began earlier this...
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James O'Keefe has a book release coming up on Tuesday and so he's dropping new video wherever he can in anticipation of it, I guess. But this one had me laughing because of the title he chose for his book chapter and the way he let his hurt feelings...
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This isn't the least bit surprising. House Speaker John Boehner is not going to bring a comprehensive immigration-reform plan to the floor if a majority of Republicans don't support it, sources familiar with his plans said. "No way in hell," is how several...
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Welcome to an exclusive C&L live blogchat with Jerry DeWitt, author of Hope After Faith, which we reviewed yesterday. A quick recap: For twenty-five years, Jerry DeWitt was a deep south Pentacostal evangelical preacher. A little over two years ago,...
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By Justin Elliott, ProPublica In the months following the October 2001, passage of the Patriot Act, there was a heated public debate about the very provision of the law that we now know the government is using to vacuum up phone records of American citizens...
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Click here to view this media The Daily Show's John Oliver was back for his second week filling in as host for Jon Stewart and doing a fantastic job once again. He opened this Monday's show with a revelation following the return of Sarah Palin to Fox...
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Click here to view this media Fox News host Gregg Jarrett suggested on Monday that George Zimmerman might have been justified in killing Trayvon Martin because the teen "may have been violent" from smoking marijuana. During a break in jury selection...
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I’ll admit from the start that the Snowden chat at the Guardian was a brilliant journalistic and technical feat. At the same time, it’s clear that Snowden is still closely following the news, and presumably shaping his answers for maximal political...
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Genre: AlternativeTitle: RecoveryArtist: Frank Turner Tape Deck Heart [Explicit] Frank Turner is the former lead singer for the British punk band Millions Dead. The single from his new album is both sad and dance-able -- a nice combination. Whatcha listening...
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Oh Thank God--Finally, War With Syria by Russ Baker on Jun 15, 2013 As we have been reporting over the past 18 months, the Obama Administration has had a very frustrating time inventing reasons to invade Syria or otherwise topple the independent-minded...
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Philadelphia public schools are the victim of a weird and evil set of priorities. In this interview, Philadelphia Mayor Nutter attempts to explain why public schools are being closed due to state cuts at the same time the state has found $400 million...
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Click here to view this media Three former NSA whistle-blowers discuss the Edward Snowden case with USA TODAY reporters Susan Page and Peter Eisler. Edward Snowden is apparently feeling safe enough in Hong Kong to field questions at The Guardian in a...
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My new op-ed at Al Jazeera English, "Obama's crackpot realism and the real crime of Edward Snowden" argues that C. Wright Mill's concept of 'crackpot realism' helps explain and define Obama's continuity with George Bush's policies. The op-ed starts like...
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Click here to view this media Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) announced on Monday that she was writing a book filled with "legalese" about how to fight what some social conservatives call the "War on Christmas." In her first appearance on Fox News...
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Click here to view this media H/t Heather for this video. As the case of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden moves forward in the press, the conventional wisdom of the media elites seems to be that Snowden is bizarre, a coward,a weasel, a traitor, and a...
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Jerry DeWitt is an atheist. So am I. I was more or less born and raised an atheist (Unitarians being notoriously tolerant about who they let in their doors), I am still an atheist, my cancer is highly unlikely to change that, so I will probably die an...
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Click here to view this media This is rich. Karl Rove thinks our credibility in the Middle East was just now lost when the Obama administration wasn't willing to insert themselves into the middle of another country's civil war soon enough to suit all...
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Aww. Bankers are just trying to help the poor, just like they did with mortgages! What kind of low-life bottom-feeders came up with this brilliant idea? I guess getting away with using these cards for government benefits just emboldened the bankers to...
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This is absolutely unconscionable. Via Bloomberg News: Based in part on surreptitious tape recordings, an FBI affidavit lays out allegations that a Sacred Heart pulmonologist kept patients too sedated to breathe on their own, then ordered unneeded tracheotomies...
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Score one against the Brewer/Arpaio crowd: The Supreme Court on Monday struck down an Arizona law that requires people to submit proof of citizenship when they register to vote. The vote was 7-2. Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, said...
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Link: Edward Snowden, the 29-year-old former National Security Agency contractor who leaked highly sensitive information about the super-secret agency, will answer questions online this morning through the website of The Guardian, which broke Snowden's...
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Click here to view this media Bill Maher used the recent news that Rep. John Dingell was being celebrated as the longest-serving member of Congress at the ripe old age of 86 to make the point that maybe some of these extremely old members of Congress...
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Click here to view this media CNN media critic Howard Kurtz worried on Sunday that cable news was already spending too much time covering George Zimmerman's trial for the killing of Trayvon Martin, and that the "racially inflammatory" coverage was causing...
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Genre: Rock and RollTitle: Mary Jane's Last DanceArtist: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Greatest Hits Artist: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Price: $5.35 (As of 06/16/13 02:39 am details) This is Number 91 on Rolling Stone's list of all-time Greatest...
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A few days ago, news broke of a group of officers in the Australian army calling themselves The Jedi Council who allegedly filmed themselves having sex with female colleagues and other women they picked up in nightclubs, then – unbeknownst to the women...
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Click here to view this media After playing a series of embarassing clips from Michele Bachmann, Phyllis Schlafly, Allen West, Sarah Palin, John Ratzenberger and others, the same bunch of assorted lunatics who show up at all these conservative conferences...
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Click here to view this media Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) on Sunday declared that President Barack Obama should not put "any limits" on U.S. military involvement in the civil war that's being waged in Syria. "I don't think you can place any limits on...
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Click here to view this media Who needs Fox when we've got Villager extraordinaire and MSNBC host Mrs. Greenspan, a.k.a. Andrea Mitchell doing their dirty work for them on this Sunday's Meet the Press? I guess she got the recent memo with the latest...
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Click here to view this media Coming from the man who lied to the American people about WMD's. If old Deadeye Dick really thinks that this NSA leak is "one of the worst occasions [...] of somebody with access to classified information doing enormous...
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Click here to view this media Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said on Sunday that he favored former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL) as a 2016 presidential candidate, but no Republican could win unless comprehensive immigration reform was passed because the party was...
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Click here to view this media Republican strategist Karl Rove is encouraging Americans to support massive National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance programs because fictional police officers monitor phone calls on television dramas. "If you don't like...
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Click here to view this media Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday asserted that President Barack Obama has "no credibility" on the so-called war on terror. Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace pointed out to the former vice president in a recently-recorded...
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Remember that old joke about "the cat's on the roof", and how I last used it about Fukushima to illustrate how they would release misleading info in increments before they'd finally tell us the truth? Well, last week, we were "only" collecting metadata...
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