Fox News bloviator Bill O’Reilly did the rounds of various shows on his network promoting his idea that that US needed troops to fight in Syria but that the task should be given to mercenaries rather than members of the US armed forces. He was widely ridiculed even by the people of Fox
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On John Oliver’s show Last Week Tonight, he had a hilarious clip (sorry, embedding was disallowed so you will have to follow the link to see it) about Ayn Rand titled Why is Ayn Rand still a thing?, because she is still a big influence on Republicans with presidential ambitions people like Paul Ryan, Rand Paul, and Ted Cruz, who all proudly state that they are fans of her despite her support for abortion rights and her atheism.
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The US government has the power to issue people with what are known as ‘national security letters’ that require recipients to not only give the government any data it requests even if it is about their clients, but they are forbidden to tell anyone, even their lawyers, that they received such a letter. So for example, they can ask your librarian to tell them what items you check out or your internet provider to hand over any information they have on you. It is an astounding assertion of government power and shows the reach of the national security state.
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The events of September 11, 2001 scared the daylights out of the American public. Apart from spawning numerous deadly and endless wars around the globe that have resulted in the number of deaths being many times the original figure of 3,000, it has also spawned a mindset that seems to think that the US government has a duty to create a society where there is zero risk from dying from a terrorist attack.
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Stephen Colbert looks at some of the people having ambitions of running for the presidency and their appearance at that reactionary love-fest known as the Values Voters Summit, and what some are saying about science, focusing on Bobby Jindal. I don’t know who will be the Republican nominee in 2016 but I am almost 100% certain it won’t be Jindal however much he panders to ignorance.
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I was listening to a report on NPR about the problem of police are reacting with overwhelming force in so many situations that do not warrant it, and in the process shooting and killing people who later turn out to be quite innocent.
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Spencer Ackerman writes that the Obama administration has asked a federal judge to close to the media and public a hearing to be held on its brutal force-feeding practices on prisoners at Guantanamo, prompting suspicions that they are, as usual, seeking to cover up the atrocities they are committing while sanctimoniously preaching about human rights to the rest of the world
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It looks like Obama has declared open season on Syrian civilians, including women and children.
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Jian Ghomeshi, host of the CBC radio program Q, had a wide-ranging interview with Julian Assange about his new book When Google Met WikiLeaks, about a two-day meeting he had with Google chairman Eric Schmidt in June 2011 during the time Assange was under house arrest in England.
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As Paul Waldman writes, it is almost inevitable that some person who is angered by what is happening in the middle east will be inspired by ISIS/ISIL or whatever the terror group du jour is, to get a gun and shoot up a crowd somewhere in the US. Then instead of treating it as just another mass shooting of the kind that has become routine, the terrorist connection will cause everyone to flip out and hide under their beds and demand that the government do something so that they can come out.
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