Cartoon – F.B.I. Housecall
Tag: government
Hungarian power grab
Budapest Power grab: In the face of mass protests and international condemnation, the Hungarian parliament has overwhelmingly passed 15 pages of amendments to the country’s 1-year-old constitution that practically abolish all judicial checks on the government. The amendments retroactively restore a number of controversial laws that were passed by the right-wing Fidesz government but subsequently ruled unconstitutional by the courts. […]
Read moreAMERICA’S LETHAL COCKTAIL PARTY
By the mid-1920s, the American government was at its wit’s end. The era’s strict Prohibition laws had proved futile. Americans were still drinking; they were just doing so on the sly, frequenting speakeasies and buying alcohol from crime syndicates. Gangs would steal large quantities of industrial alcohol—used for everything from fueling machines to sterilizing instruments— then redistill the hooch to […]
Read moreChina’s Human Rights Activists Under Scrutiny
Beijing Mass arrests: In one of the biggest crackdowns on civil society groups in decades, Chinese authorities have detained and questioned at least 238 lawyers and human rights activists over the past two weeks. At least 20 activists remain incarcerated, and the whereabouts of six of them are unclear. Maya Wang, a researcher with Human Rights. Watch, said those still […]
Read moreGeorge Burns Quote – Run The Country
“It’s too bad the people who really know how to run the country are so busy cutting hair and driving taxis.” – George Burns
Read moreThe Flint Water Crisis
The Flint water crisis. A health catastrophe uncovered by a doctor at the Flint, MI Public Hospital. Dr. Mona as she is referred to is also a professor at Flint, MI state university’s College of Medicine. Call it fate, but Dr. Mona was in the right place at the right time when she discovered the horrific safety hazards posed by […]
Read moreEnvying the lower castes
Suddenly everyone wants to be low-caste, said Badri Narayan. It used to be considered an extreme disadvantage to be in one of India’s oppressed castes or indigenous tribes. But decades of affirmative action and quota systems have changed all that. Now, many lower-middle castes are agitating to be reclassified as “more backward,” in effect “struggling to move down the ladder […]
Read moreCartoon – Police State
Chief Justice’s power over surveillance
Chief Justice John Roberts is even more powerful than you might think, said Ezra Klein. In addition to presiding over the Supreme Court, Roberts also has the “exclusive, unaccountable, lifetime power to shape the surveillance state.” It’s a little known fact that the chief justice appoints all 11 members of the secret court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance […]
Read moreHow U.S. debt went out of control
How did the U.S. debt get so high? The crucial turning point came back in 2001, said Lori Montgomery. At the time, Uncle Sam was actually running surpluses, and “the outlook was so rosy” that forecasters were predicting the U.S. could pay back every dime it had ever borrowed. That’s when President George W. Bush made a pivotal decision: Rather […]
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