So the Republicans in the House of Representatives managed to squeeze through their repeal of Obamacare by the thinnest of margins of 217-213 even though it did not undergo any of the normal scrutiny that a major bill should receive. But we do know that it seeks to deprive many people of basic health care protections and is a huge siphoning of money from the poor to the rich.
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Some of you use ad blocker software and that may prevent you from seeing some of the content on this page. Part of the problem may be, as Trickster Goddess said in a comment, that the FtB content is not encrypted (as you see since our URL begins with ‘http’ and not ‘https’) and if you are using browsers and settings that allow only encrypted content to get through, it may strip out some content, like images. I suggested a long time ago that FtB join the wave and use encryption for all its content but it did not go anywhere. Part of the problem is that this site is run on a shoestring budget and anything that is not critical to just keep the site running tends to get deferred.
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There is a persistent paradox in discussions about politics, especially in academia. Businesses, interest groups, and their lobbyists give vast amounts of money to politicians and this naturally leads to the impression that many of our politicians can be bought and sold like commodities. After all, why throw money away on some thing that produces little or no returns? And yet, I have found that academic studies by political scientists and economists tend to argue that money is not a decisive factor in how legislators vote on issues. I have been to many seminars and political scientists almost always dismiss as ignorant those who suggest that money buys votes or can change the way people vote. They suggest other reasons why money flows to politicians, such as that people give money to those politicians who already agree with them. In other words, it is a reward for past practices rather than a bribe to change future behavior, to keep people who are already on your side from defecting rather than trying to win over opponents.
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Seth Meyers on Donald Trump and the Civil War and his discovery that being president involves work.
Stephen Colbert also chimed in and had a surprise guest on to answer the question of why the war occurred.
Since his release four days after being re-arrested by the Bureau of Prison (BOP) for not getting permission to speak to the press, journalist Barrett Brown has written his side of the account to clear up any confusion about what happened.
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[Note: You can stream the film for free until May 15.]
The documentary National Bird directed by Sonia Kennebeck and released by Independent Lens looks at the US drone warfare program from the point of view of three former US Air Force (Heather, Daniel, and Lisa) whose jobs were to identify targets seen in the drone videos, and from the survivors of the infamous attack on February 21, 2010 on a convoy carrying a group of families that resulted in the deaths of 23 people, all civilians, and caused serious injuries to many others. All three of them have since left the Air Force. They all suffer from guilt at what they were part of, with Heather being suicidal and diagnosed with PTSD. Daniel is under threat of charges under the draconian Espionage Act and all three fear that the government will take severe action against them as it has with other whistleblowers.
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Today’s newspaper had not one but two cartoons disparaging religion. The first one touches on a topic that I often raise when I have been invited to be on panels that include representatives from many religions. In such forums, those representatives go strongly into the kumbaya mode, vaguely suggesting that they all believe in the same god and focusing on common elements of morality and ethics that they happen to agree on. Boring!
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If there is one organization that conjures up images of wholesomeness, it is the Girl Scouts. When my daughters were young, they were members of that inclusive and welcoming group and selling their cookies was the easiest thing because everyone loved the Girl Scouts. And the cookies were pretty good, too.
On the road to evil
The chattering classes are all of a doo-dah and reaching for their smelling salts. The reason? Donald Trump’s friendliness with leaders like Egypt’s el Sisi, Turkey’s Erdogan, and the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte, inviting them to the US for state visits despite their appalling human rights records. But, as usual, this is being portrayed as exceptional behavior, rather than a continuation of long-standing US policy to support and coddle the worst leaders as long as they serve US interests.
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Pretty much everyone has some relative that they find embarrassing for some reason and on the occasion of getting married may prefer that one’s friends and in-laws not meet them because of the awkwardness that might ensue. The problem that arises during weddings, especially in traditional societies, is that one is obliged to invite relatives and also have less control of who will meet whom.
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