Russell Berman describes yet another example of the old sleight of hand practiced by supply-side politicians, this time in the state of Kansas, where the governor Sam Brownback came into office promising that tax cuts would boost the economy of that state so much that it would more than compensate for the loss of revenue.
[Read more…]
Watching the Republicans in Congress and their leader Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu bad-mouth the negotiated framework for a deal between the P5+1 nations and Iran shows how insane politics has become in the US. These people don’t want negotiations being conducted by their own country’s president to succeed. Instead they take their cues from a foreign leader who wants nothing other than the complete capitulation of Iran, and who threaten war if that is not attained. Since Iran will never agree to such humiliating terms, they clearly want war.
[Read more…]
After being on the defensive for some time and trying to prevent the long-held dream of the oligarchy to either cut spending on Social Security benefits (so that they can provide more tax cuts for themselves) or to privatize the funds (so that they can loot it directly) coming true, some Democrats led by senator Elizabeth Warren have gone on the offensive by arguing, correctly, that the benefits actually need to be increased for low-income retirees, with the extra money for it coming from eliminating the cap on earned income subject to the payroll tax that currently stands at $118,500.
[Read more…]
A Cleveland police officer named Michael Brelo is on trial for the killing of two unarmed people at the end of a crazy and dangerous chase through the city with 62 police cars and 100 officers in pursuit that ended with the victims and their car having 137 bullets pumped into them, 49 of them by Brelo, the last 15 after he jumped on the top of the car and fired straight down, as if he was the star in some action film. It later turned out that the insane chase and deaths may have been triggered by the victims’ car backfiring that some police thought was a gunshot.
[Read more…]
John Oliver’s interview with Edward Snowden about the abuses by the US government has been viewed over 4.3 million times and so of course the apologists for the national security state in the media and politics have come out of the woodwork to smear him yet again because they fear that his exposure of widespread government surveillance in pursuance of ways to control the population and suppress dissent will enable those seeking to curb those excesses to gain traction. These people may say they fear terrorism but what they really fear is transparency and democracy.
[Read more…]
That black drivers are routinely stopped by police on the flimsiest of pretexts is now common knowledge. Just a few days ago, I wrote about comedian Chris Rock’s experience of being repeatedly stopped by police and actor Isaiah Washington’s advice to him to drive a cheaper car if he wanted to not arouse police suspicions.
[Read more…]
I came across a fascinating story about a tiny bird that puts human endurance records to shame. It was a about a small songbird called the blackpoll warbler that every autumn makes a non-stop flight from Vermont to Puerto Rico, a distance of 1between 1,400-1,700 miles that takes it three days to complete. This is a a pretty amazing feat for a bird that weighs just 12 grams.
[Read more…]
Our university is currently going through the very last stages of renewing its accreditation as an institution of higher learning. It happens every ten years and is a big deal. We have to show the accrediting body that we are meeting our mission of providing a quality education to our students and have the resources to do so, so that our degrees actually mean something. The process requires a lot of work for the university because we have to collect all the evidence to support our case.
[Read more…]
With the proposed deal between the P5+1 nations and Iran dominating the news, Jon Schwarz digs up six interesting facts about US-Iran history. Some of them were already familiar to me but all of them are interesting and worth reading.
[Read more…]
We see in Indiana a repeat of what happened with Chik-fil-A a few years ago when that company got calls for a boycott for the anti-same sex marriage statements of the owner. People opposed to equal rights for gays rallied around the company in solidarity and there were long lines of people waiting to buy products. In Indiana, a similar thing occurred with people sending lots of money to support a pizzeria that got a lot of flak and death threats for saying they would not cater a same-sex wedding.
[Read more…]