This weekend, the New York Times published a story that could become the most important story of the 2016 election: Pivotal swing states under Republican control are embracing significant new electoral restrictions on registering and voting that go beyond the voter identification requirements that have caused fierce partisan brawls. The bills, laws and administrative rules […]
Paul Constant
Posted inThe Twitter
Twitter Is Great Because of Its Limitations
Yesterday, Twitter made some changes to its service. Ashley Feinberg wrote about them for Gizmodo: Not only can a single tweet now hold multiple photos (each with up to 10 tagged friends), but none of that extra baggage takes away any of your precious characters. I’m not crazy about Twitter’s newfound love of photographs. I […]
Posted inHealth
A Complete History of Republican Aggression Against Obamacare
Igor Volsky at ThinkProgress has assembled a comprehensive timeline of Republican attempts to kill Obamacare. When all four years of threats, futile repeals, and baseless claims are put together like this, it almost looks like Republicans have no idea what they’re doing.
Posted in$$$
Rich Man Writes Bullshit “Apology” for Saying Liberals Are Like Hitler
Yesterday, Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone Godwinned all over himself on the topic of economic fairness: …if you go back to 1933, with different words, this is what Hitler was saying in Germany. You don’t survive as a society if you encourage and thrive on envy or jealousy. Last night, Langone “apologized” for making that […]
Posted in$$$
How Many Americans Support Themselves on Less Than $10.10 an Hour?
Over at the spiffy new FiveThirtyEight, Ben Casselman crunches the numbers on a minimum wage hike. Casselman finds that while a relatively small number of Americans actually earn the minimum wage, a whole lot of Americans are below President Obama’s proposed national minimum wage of $10.10 an hour. According to the survey, in 2013 more […]
Posted inMovies & TV
What Movie Would Win the Republican Oscars?
Alex Stedman at Variety says that a new poll shows Republican dissatisfaction with the Academy choosing 12 Years a Slave as Best Picture: In a survey released by Public Policy Polling, the organization asked 1,152 registered voters, via telephone and Internet, their thoughts on the Steve McQueen’s most recent film being named best picture at […]
Posted inDrugs
We Might Not Agree About E-Cigarettes, but Can We All Agree That “Vaping” Is a Terrible Word?
As an ex-smoker, I’m very leery of e-cigarettes. I think they’re another way for Big Tobacco to convince smokers to try to tone down, rather than quit, their cigarette habits. Most everyone I know who tried to switch to e-cigarettes for the health benefits have wound up back on, uh, analog cigarettes within a matter […]
Posted inMedia
President Obama Doesn’t Get Between Two Ferns with the Washington Post
It’s not just conservatives who have a problem with President Obama’s appearance on Between Two Ferns. Traditional media is feeling shut out, too. Chris Cillizza writes at the Washington Post: Obama’s “Between Two Ferns” appearance comes on the heels of a sitdown with former NBA great Charles Barkley, an interview that ran during the All-Star […]
Posted inTransportation
America Loves Public Transportation
Or at least, America is getting awfully sick of cars: In 2013 Americans took 10.7 billion trips on public transportation, which is the highest annual public transit ridership number in 57 years, according to a report released today by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA). This was the eighth year in a row that more […]
Posted inPolitics
Here’s Edward Snowden Speaking at SXSW
Actually, with all the reverb from the microphones, a more accurate headline for this post would be “Here’s Edward Snowden-owden-den-en Speaking-eaking-king-ing at SXSW.” But I know a lot of you are interested in Snowden, and hopefully you’ll be able to muddle through this video until someone gets a workable transcript up online: Reports from SXSW […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Conservative Writer Upset That 12 Years a Slave Didn’t Show Any Happy Slaves
12 Years a Slave: Note that none of these people are smiling. What’s up with that? I try not to hate-read conservative racist comments anymore, because they just take up room in my brain and they don’t do anyone any good. But Mary Noble at Politix linked to this astounding review of 12 Years a […]
Posted inReligion
Pope Francis Says Catholic Church Could Support Same-Sex Civil Unions
CNN says: Pope Francis reaffirmed the Catholic Church’s opposition to gay marriage on Wednesday, but suggested in a newspaper interview that it could support some types of civil unions. The Pope reiterated the church’s longstanding teaching that “marriage is between a man and a woman.” However, he said, “We have to look at different cases […]