I have not yet seen the new movie “Bobby,” about the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy and the lives of 22 people who were at the Ambassador Hotel the night he was killed, but David Sirota has and he wrote a good post about it. I didn’t agree with every word of his meta-analysis, […]
By any reasonable measure, Iraq is now out of control. It’s reached a point in which the LA Times has stopped the semantics game news outlets have been toying with for months and started using the appropriate phrase. Iraq’s civil war worsened Friday as Shiite and Sunni Arabs engaged in retaliatory attacks after coordinated car […]
Focus on the Family’s James Dobson made yet another hour-long appearance on CNN’s Larry King live this week, and because the interview was aired the night before Thanksgiving, it didn’t generate much in the way of attention. Like Fred Clarkson, I think that’s a shame — Dobson was in rare form. Dobson said, for example, […]
The oil industry’s aggressive opposition to measures to counteract global warming seemed to jump the shark earlier this year. The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a front-group funded by oil companies (most notably Exxon Mobil), unveiled a TV ad that hoped to convince Americans not to worry about climate change — because carbon dioxide is inherently good. […]
As recently as a few days ago, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals has been considering an appeal from CBS over a $550,000 fine with from the Federal Communications Commission after Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” during the Super Bowl a couple of years ago. CBS has a relatively compelling argument: that the FCC has generally […]
First up from the God machine is a story that combines two of my favorite subjects: religion news and science fiction. Last week, two self-proclaimed Jedi Knights appealed to the United Nations to recognize their faith as an official religion and accordingly rename the International Day for Tolerance to Interstellar Day of Tolerance. The petition […]
Guest Post by Morbo Like intestinal flu, head colds and raging sore throats, offensive netlore just keeps making the rounds. Someone sent me an e-mail recently that I assume was cooked up by some fundamentalist Christian somewhere who thinks he’s clever. It concerns sending Christmas cards to the American Civil Liberties Union. Let’s take a […]
Andrew Sullivan captured the dynamic perfectly: “The task of American democracy tackling the kind of issues that were once the province of South American countries has now begun. The authorization of war crimes, torture, and illegal wire-tapping by this administration needs to be thoroughly investigated in order to hold more than a few scapegoat grunts […]
Under Republican rule, lobbyists for corporate and industry interests had it relatively easy. Sure, the “K Street Project” forced them to hire an exclusively Republican staff, but the lobbyists and their firms knew that they could get the job done for their clients. Indeed, thanks to the GOP rule, they could simply buy access — […]
Particularly after 9/11, when government whistleblowers were lauded for having the courage to expose misjudgment and mismanagement in key federal agencies, the message went out to government employees: if you see a national security problem, don’t just keep it to yourself. Unfortunately, the message failed to mention that whistleblowers wouldn’t get any protection at all. […]