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Category Archives: Creeping Totalitarianism

Catch-22, alive and well

Monday, February 2, 2015

This article starts out hopefully, but there's a catch: ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A federal judge expressed skepticism Friday about the constitutionality of the government’s no-fly list, suggesting that those who find themselves on it should be allowed a meaningful opportunity to clear their names. The lawsuit challenging the no-fly list, filed by Alexandria resident Gulet […]

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Hoist with our own petard

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

The Egyptians must have enjoyed this.

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Boys with Toys

Monday, August 18, 2014

Tom Tomorrow gets to the heart matter re: the militarization of the cops, in his most recent cartoon. There's no question that our racist culture allows the Ferguson police to have more fun with their toys than the cops who faced Clive Bundy, but the fact is that without those toys they wouldn't be able […]

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Another take on Cantor

Thursday, June 12, 2014

There's been a lot of speculation about why Eric Cantor went down in flames. The basic reason may be the main: the man is an asshole. But I'm persuaded by this view that this is the argument that clinched the deal with the voters: But there’s no question that conservative economics professor David Brat succeeded […]

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Bad Moon Rising

Monday, June 9, 2014

Michael Hudson on the recent European elections: The US press and newscasts make it appear that Europeans have voted against poor immigrants and foreigners. What they voted against the super-rich, the oligarchy. The “foreigners” being opposed include the United States insisting on drawing NATO into its wars in Libya,Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan – and now, […]

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Demagogues hard at work in Europe

Friday, May 23, 2014

This morning Paul Krugman warns once again about the rising of the right in Europe, the result of, ironically enough, conservative to right wing (in normal times) economic nostrums. It’s hard to imagine war in today’s Europe, which has coalesced around democratic values and even taken its first steps toward political union. Indeed, as I […]

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Not your Father’s First Amendment

Friday, April 4, 2014

Matt Bevin, owner of a bell factory here in Connecticut is the Tea Party candidate who is softening up Mitch McConnell for November. He has, of course, inserted his foot in a number of his own orifices, his mouth being the least embarrassing. He's currently in a bit of trouble for attending a rally in […]

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What do the CIA and the lowliest bureaucrats have in common?

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

This morning I perused this post at Rolling Stone, highlighting 11 “Jaw-Dropping” lines from the recent speech by the loathsome Dianne Feinstein. You know the speech; the one in which she condemned CIA spying in the strongest terms, those terms operative only when they are spying on her. As for the rest of us, her […]

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Stopped clocks and Obama haters

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Yesterday a lot of us on the left were pleasantly surprised that a federal judge in Washington had ruled the NSA surveillance program not just merely unconstitional, but really quite sincerely unconstitutional. I know I was pleasantly surprised, though when I read the judge's name, something tugged at my not so mystic chords of memory. […]

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Yet more on “free trade”

Friday, December 13, 2013

Here's an example of what we'll be seeing more of, if the U.S. gets what it wants in the TPP “free trade” talks. Tobacco companies are pushing back against a worldwide rise in antismoking laws, using a little-noticed legal strategy to delay or block regulation. The industry is warning countries that their tobacco laws violate […]

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