Category: political
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Senate surveillance (FISA) roll calls
There were two major votes on the ‘Protect’ America Act (FISA) surveillance bill in the Senate today. Civil liberties lost both times. The fight now moves to the House. A 15-day extension is possible. mcjoan has more on Kos.
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“Double Bubble Trouble”: Massive voter disenfranchisement in California — and Washington?
The LA Registrar of Voters says it may not be possible to determine voter intent! Please sign Courage Campaign’s “Count every vote” petition asking for a full recount! 25,000 signatures so far; latest update and some discussion about “intent” on Courage Campaign’s page here. PeteTV has a video and transcript at So this is what…
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Choosing hope over fear: Obama ’08
A lot of people have written great posts on why they support Barack Obama and his campaign; so I’ll keep it quick, and link out to others who have taken the time to give more details and say things better. A lot of people say “they’re no different on the issues”. I disagree. There are…
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The Super Tuesday thread!
To avoid overflowing the blog, I’ll use this thread to collect various snippets about Super Tuesday. Stories and threads elsewhere: Twitter: supertuesday, Politweets, very cool Google maps mashup, Tag clouds for liberal and conservative blogs, from Virtual Vantage point. Live coverage of Super Tuesday, the feeling on the ground and letters to friends and family…
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Democratic candidates’ positions on trans- and LBGTIQ issues
All the Democratic candidates have shown a willingness to discuss LBGTIQ issues, and there are some very clear litmus tests. The Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy mandating discrimination against gays in the military and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) restricting marriage to heterosexual couples are great lenses for discovering the candidates’ views on LGB…
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Kos gets one very, very, right
On the heels of posts by Matthew Yglesias and Ezra Klein yesterday, Kos has an excellent short post highlighting how Bill Clinton and Edwards both completely distorted Obama’s quote about Reagan as a transformative politician. Huh. I didn’t see the part where Obama said the GOP’s ideas were “all the good” ones. In fact, Obama…
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DA who sent ‘amorous’ and racially charged messages to drop arson charges against Texas Supreme Court Judge
Now that’s a story you don’t see every day! A Texas Supreme Court justice and his wife were charged on Thursday in an arson fire that destroyed their suburban Houston home last June, the judge’s lawyer said. But in a bizarre reversal, prosecutors plan on Friday to seek dismissal of the indictments against the justice……
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Happy birthday, EFF!
EFF’s 17th birthday party is tonight at 111 Minna in San Francisco. Cleverly timed to coincide with Macworld, it features Adrian and the Mysterious D of Bootie fame, and is sponsored by Louis Rosetto’s (of Wired) new chocolate company TCHO. And they’ll be beta-testing TCHO’s new dark chocolates! [Hmm … DJs, mashups, chocolate. What does…
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Why the New Hampshire recount is important
There are a couple of excellent posts up on why even though there are plausible explanations for the discrepancies in candidates’ results between hand-counted and machine-counted precincts, the recount in the New Hampshire primary is a good thing. In Off the Bus on the Huffington Post, after giving some background on the vulnerabilities of the…
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Five-year olds as national security threats
Boing Boing has stories on not one but two five-year-olds whose names are on the no-fly list and so get treated by the TSA as a security threat. Cory Doctorow comments You know, if you wanted to systematically discredit the idea of a Department of Homeland Security, if you wanted to make an utter mockery…