I have been discussing in previous posts the divisions within the Republican party. The split is not along any ideological lines (they are pretty much unified on all the major issues) but on strategy, between what we might call Tactical Obstructionists and Scorched Earthers. The Tactical Obstructionists are those who favor more traditional means of achieving political goals, carefully choosing those fights that they think they can win or that have the most resonance with voters, but letting the rest of the government function. This is the approach of the Republican party establishment. [Read more…]

While there have been complaints about the Affordable Care Act, one of the good pieces of news coming out is that sex workers who formerly could not get health insurance for no reason other than the stigma associated with their work, even in states where it is legal, now can purchase affordable insurance. [Read more…]

I was curious as to what Stephen M. Walt would have to say about the deal with Iran and he says that while the proximate issue is about nuclear technology, the ultimate issue is something else and it is the latter that explains the somewhat paradoxical reactions of both supporters and opponents of the deal. [Read more…]

The ACLU has gone to court to stop the government from collecting the phone records of everybody. The government has asked the judge to trust the “national security experts” when they say that they are doing this only to combat terrorism and not to poke into the lives of ordinary people. The judge heard the case last Friday. [Read more…]

It turns out, according to the latest revelations from the Edward Snowden documents, that the NSA has infected more than 50,000 networks worldwide with malicious computer software that turns those computers effectively into ‘sleeper cells‘ that can be exploited by the NSA when it wants. [Read more…]

So it looks like a deal has been reached between Iran and the P5+1 nations. (Here is a fact sheet on the deal put out by the White House.) This is supposed to be an interim deal until a more comprehensive deal is worked out in six months. Juan Cole looks at what both sides got in the deal. [Read more…]