The extremely delicate sensibilities of some religious organizations

The Affordable Care Act requires employers that provide health insurance to employees to provide contraceptive coverage for women. Religious organizations that oppose contraception have argued that this violates their religious beliefs and have gone to court to say that they should be exempt under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) that prevents the government from taking actions that would “substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion” unless there is a “compelling governmental interest” and the action is the “least restrictive” it can take.
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The heartland speaks – and it sounds nuts

The individual states are popularly supposed to be the laboratories of US democracy where many ideas can be tried out and the best ones then adopted nationally. The Daily Show takes a look at some of the ideas that being proposed in states that, as we repeatedly told by idiotic politicians, represent the ‘real’ America, without them ever explaining why the rest of America in the big cities and the coasts are any less American.
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Ted Cruz’s unusual strategy

It is not uncommon for political neophytes who once raged against the system to, once they get into office, temper their rhetoric in order to get things done, since governance usually requires compromise and not alienating those one needs to work with. But what begins as a tactical maneuver to get others to go along with your plans can often end up with you going along with their plans and eventually changing your own views to theirs. This process is what George Orwell satirized in his Animal Farm where the pigs who overthrew the human farmers on the slogan of “Four legs good, two legs bad” and took charge of running the farm eventually became indistinguishable in attitude, actions, and even appearance from the humans they once despised.
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Barack Obama – master drone killer

The Daily Show looks at how the US government’s war on language increases along with its desire to break laws and violate the constitution. The latest trial balloon being floated is about how the Obama administration is once again ‘agonizing’ (translation: trying to find the best way to justify to the public) about its desire to summarily kill yet another American.
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Russia is the new paradise for US conservatives

Since today seems to be my day for winter Olympics-related posts, I thought I’d link to The Daily Show’s Jason Jones who has been in Russia during the games and discovers that the country that US conservatives used to hate for being the main component of the ‘evil empire’ now seems to have adopted all the attributes that US conservatives want to see in the US. They would feel right at home there.
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Will Farrell, figure-skater

His feelings hurt at being snubbed by the US Olympic figure-skating hierarchy and not given a chance to make the team (they did not even tell him when the trials were taking place) and suspecting that time is running out for him to get a medal since he will be 50 by the 2018 Olympics, Will Ferrell goes on late night TV to show the world the routine he was planning to perform if he had been at Sochi, complete with the costume. It looks to me like he coulda been a contender.
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David Attenborough investigates strange primate behavior in Sochi

David Attenborough is one of the most famous names in producing nature documentaries, going to all manner of remote and exotic locations to capture life in the wild and make sense of what may seem to outsiders to be inexplicable animal behaviors. He turns his formidable nature-observing skills to explain to us the strange behavior he observed in one group of animals in Russia.
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