The war on women and why we need to stand with Planned Parenthood

The recent release of heavily edited videos purportedly showing officials of Planned Parenthood selling tissue from aborted fetuses tried to make out that they were engaging in a surreptitious, illegal, profit-making activity when in fact they were only doing what the law allows, and that is to recover the costs incurred in supplying tissue for medical research. Heather Digby Parton explains how the outfit that produced the videos was working closely with some Republican members of Congress to produce this coordinated attack.
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The curious love affair that ordinary Americans have with the wealthy

One of the enduring mysteries of American politics is why so many people are so supportive and admiring of wealthy people who in return have nothing but contempt for them and do everything they can to enrich themselves at their expense. Many people of ordinary means seem to think that F. Scott Fitzgerald was wrong and that the rich are like you and me.
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Once again, Jon Stewart takes Fox News to the woodshed

Howard Kurtz on his show on Fox News once again brings up the idea that by going to the White House twice, Jon Stewart has proved that he is a stooge for president Obama. Kurtz should have known better because there is nothing that seems to get Stewart’s energy up than taking Fox News hypocrisy and flinging it back in their faces and he has a grand old time here, showing Kurtz how a takedown should be done and in the process revealing Kurtz’s own hackery.
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Stupid Republican tricks

KerryIs it only me or is anyone else embarrassed by the antics of the various Republican candidates in their willingness to do things that make them look ridiculous? Have they learned nothing from the past of John Kerry dressed in a weird-looking biohazard suit and crawling through a tube, looking for all the world like one of the sperm in the Woody Allen film Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex But Were Afraid to Ask?
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Israel going to the mat on the Iran deal

It is clear that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pulling out all the stops to defeat the nuclear deal arrived at recently between the P5+1 nations and Iran. The Israeli lobby in the US is leading the charge on Netanyahu’s behalf by working on the members of the US Congress. Congress has sixty days to pass a vote of disapproval on the deal. Given Republican majorities in both houses and the desire of that party to defeat any significant act by president Obama, that vote seems to be a foregone conclusion and you can expect to hear every Republican candidate condemn the deal at tomorrow’s debate. It is also clear that Obama will then veto that vote. So the real question is whether Congress can muster the two-thirds majority to override the veto.
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Donald Trump knows his audience

The first Republican debate is on August 6, 2015. Normally, I would never have dreamed of wasting two hours of my life watching an early Republican primary debate. Who wants to see a bunch of wealthy oligarch-serving warmongers try and outdo each other in pandering to their xenophobic, homophobic, misogynistic, science-denying base, especially since it is being shown on Fox News and I do not have cable TV? But thanks to Donald Trump, I am so intrigued about what might happen that I am going to the trouble of going to a friend’s house to see it. And it is clear that I am not the only one who has been suckered into giving what Fox News expects to be a ratings bonanza. Even their decision to limit it to ten candidates has had the effect of heightening suspense with breathless discussions of who is in and who is out.
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The strange status of Washington DC

On the latest episode of his show Last Week Tonight John Oliver looks at the history of how the residents of the District of Columbia ended up without many of the basic electoral rights that the rest of the nation enjoys, the way that Congress interferes with and overrides its decisions, and the feeble excuses given for maintaining the status quo.

You must listen to the song sung by the children at the end, beginning at the 15:30 mark. It is hilarious.
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Suggestion to reduce police abuse: Raise income taxes

As the nationwide unrest over the harassment and killing of people, especially poor and black, by police continues, Jack Hitt at Mother Jones notes that many of these violent confrontations began with what appear to be really trivial offenses and that this can be traced back to local governments using the fines generated by minor offenses as a way of plugging budget shortfalls.
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