The news was broken by Glenn Greenwald of The Guardian and also by The Washington Post that FISA court Judge Roger Vincent approved a warrant drafted by the National Security Agency (NSA) to require Verizon to turn over all of its records of calls made to and from the US and any foreign telephone. It… [read more]
Forehead Slapper
Some things are rather obvious, like the message on this highway sign. And some things are just as obvious in The Constitution. Here is the Second Amendment in its entirety: “A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not… [read more]
Crunch Time For Illinois Residents
There are times that require that we stand up and say what we stand for. This is one of those times in Illinois. I’ve written extensively about big money being the mother lode driving the dysfunction in our politics and this is a critical time for doing something about that. We are very close to… [read more]
Melting Pot?
Since the first immigrants arrived this has always been a Euro-centric place. Surely that’s understandable, since it was Europeans who were the primary immigrants for a very long time. Of course, after a while we started importing Africans to be our slaves, but there was no need to change our orientation, since Africans weren’t considered… [read more]
It Ain’t Easy – And Their Mothers
Before you decide that those who see the immigration issue quite differently from the way you see it as having brains operating at sub-optimal levels, consider a few things. First, let’s be clear that the issue is about non-citizens who are in America without the legal right to be here. Many of them are people… [read more]
Special Ice Cream Edition
Whatever your issue, budget, debt, global warming, immigration, guns, healthcare, civil rights or any other topic, the reason things aren’t getting better is because of something that controls your issue: Money. Big money. Big money that influences elections, politicians and distorts the will of the people into the will of the very few enormously wealthy… [read more]
For Purist Lefties and Windshields
I’m surely talking to myself here, but this just might fit for others, too. JA ********************************************************* The Radical Right provides enough material in a single sentence of extremism than can be corrected in a 750-word response. I’ve heard as many as three fictional facts in a single short sentence. Let them go on for two… [read more]
Pogo
As the heat subsides from the immediacy of the Boston Marathon bombings and shootings, our national dialogue naturally turns to more contemplative issues, like preventing such attacks in the future. Concurrently, we continue to wade in the morass of Sandy Hook and our elected leaders blather ineffectively over action to prevent more gun massacres. The… [read more]
The Best Thing That Could Have Happened
Sure, it was very simple and would have made only marginal improvement in violence reduction. Of course, we can characterize it as something that would have been nearly pointless. Still, the bill went down in defeat and it’s the best thing that could have happened. Let’s start with what it was and what it was… [read more]
A Special Kind of Nuts
North Carolina’s recently introduced House Joint Resolution 494 tells us that, “. . . each state is sovereign and may independently determine how the state may make laws respecting an establishment of religion . . . ,” and that, “. . . the North Carolina General Assembly does not recognize federal court rulings which prohibit… [read more]
