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Category Archives: Creeping Totalitarianism

Hey Paul, over here!

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Paul Krugman, perceptive as always: Just a quick note: one thing I don’t think has been sufficiently emphasized as we stare a euro disaster in the face is the amount of damage this will do to the overall European political landscape. Across most of the periphery, both sides of the usual political divide have been […]

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Is it possible? One small step?

Monday, June 25, 2012

A stopped clock is right twice a day, so why can’t a stopped Congress get it right once in two years? Suggesting that something good can even come from the reflexive anti-Obamaism of the modern day Republican party, we learn that there is a bi-partisan movement afoot to severely curtail the government’s use of the […]

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Bad Moon Rising

Thursday, June 14, 2012

  I’ve argued a couple of times (e.g, here) that European austerity may pave the way for a return of authoritarian regimes. Krugman makes the same point here.  

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Joe McCarthy redux

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Allen West one-ups Joe McCarthy. At least McCarthy claimed to have the goods on his targets and claimed to have them written down. Well, two can play this game. I heard that Allen West has a gay Muslim illegal immigrant lover in Washington and another one in Florida. And I truly did hear it, because […]

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Big Brother wants to protect us

Sunday, April 1, 2012

It’s probably fair to assume that Orwell was hoping his predictions would be wrong, but probably not like this. Even he could not envision the extent to which Big Brother would be watching out for we little brothers and sisters. How could he, as he had no conception of the type of technology that would […]

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Facebook threatens, but likely bluffing

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Facebook, it is reported, has threatened to sue employers that demand access to the usernames and passwords of employees or potential employees. Facebook would certainly have the financial wherewithal to intimidate smaller employees, but I would love to know, absent legislation, the nature of the legal theory on which they propose to rely. One suspects, […]

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No democracy allowed in Greece

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

This, (via Atrios) along with the extreme austerity imposed on Greece, really should give Germany, of all countries, pause: When Wolfgang Schäuble proposed that Greece should postpone its elections as a condition for further help, I knew that the game would soon be up. We are at the point where success is no longer compatible […]

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A tank for every town

Thursday, February 16, 2012

All hail to the townsfolk of Keene, New Hampshire, who are opposing the acquisition of a $285K armored vehicle for their town’s police force. As the Occupy movement has brought into sharp focus, our police departments have, behind the scenes so to speak, gradually morphed into paramilitary organizations staffed by people just off the Star  […]

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Pepper Spray cop

Monday, November 21, 2011

These Pictures are all over the net, so I don’t imagine anyone reading this won’t know about them. This is the first one I saw yesterday, which in Internet meme time is about a century ago:       But so far, I think this one is the funniest:   

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U.S. government to legalize lying

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

It’s always okay if done in the name of the security state: The Justice Department is proposing new Freedom of Information Act rules allowing the government to inform the public that records do not exist even if they do. The judiciary has rolled over and played dead while the government has kept its crimes secret […]

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