The Daily Show’s politically correct acceptance speech at the 2012 Comedy Awards.The Daily Show is the best at EVERYTHING.
Is there an award for Best Acceptance Speech? There should be.
(Source:murrayed)
25,803 notes
Reblogged from wilwheaton
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I have been saying this for years…mediamattersforamerica:
Know the facts on the federal minimum wage.
(Source:mediamattersforamerica)
Reblogged from motherjones![thepoliticalnotebook:
“Do you hate the Citizens United ruling and how it led to the flood of unlimited Super-PAC spending? You know it!” Check out Mother Jones’ interactive flowchart on how the Citizens United case could be taken down…
And after you do that, read Jeffrey Toobin’s longform piece in this issue of The New Yorker: “Money Unlimited: How Chief Justice John Roberts orchestrated the Citizens United decision.” There are some fascinating details about the oral argument proceedings, the dynamics of the Roberts court and the legal evolution of corporate personhood following the passage of the 14th amendment.
In a different way, though, Citizens United is a distinctive product of the Roberts Court. The decision followed a lengthy and bitter behind-the-scenes struggle among the Justices that produced both secret unpublished opinions and a rare reargument of a case. The case, too, reflects the aggressive conservative judicial activism of the Roberts Court. It was once liberals who were associated with using the courts to overturn the work of the democratically elected branches of government, but the current Court has matched contempt for Congress with a disdain for many of the Court’s own precedents. When the Court announced its final ruling on Citizens United, on January 21, 2010, the vote was five to four and the majority opinion was written by Anthony Kennedy. Above all, though, the result represented a triumph for Chief Justice Roberts. Even without writing the opinion, Roberts, more than anyone, shaped what the Court did. As American politics assumes its new form in the post-Citizens United era, the credit or the blame goes mostly to him.
[MoJo] [TNY]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4dk45Vz6L1qchhhqo1_500.png)
“Do you hate the Citizens United ruling and how it led to the flood of unlimited Super-PAC spending? You know it!” Check out Mother Jones’ interactive flowchart on how the Citizens United case could be taken down…
And after you do that, read Jeffrey Toobin’s longform piece in this issue of The New Yorker: “Money Unlimited: How Chief Justice John Roberts orchestrated the Citizens United decision.” There are some fascinating details about the oral argument proceedings, the dynamics of the Roberts court and the legal evolution of corporate personhood following the passage of the 14th amendment.
In a different way, though, Citizens United is a distinctive product of the Roberts Court. The decision followed a lengthy and bitter behind-the-scenes struggle among the Justices that produced both secret unpublished opinions and a rare reargument of a case. The case, too, reflects the aggressive conservative judicial activism of the Roberts Court. It was once liberals who were associated with using the courts to overturn the work of the democratically elected branches of government, but the current Court has matched contempt for Congress with a disdain for many of the Court’s own precedents. When the Court announced its final ruling on Citizens United, on January 21, 2010, the vote was five to four and the majority opinion was written by Anthony Kennedy. Above all, though, the result represented a triumph for Chief Justice Roberts. Even without writing the opinion, Roberts, more than anyone, shaped what the Court did. As American politics assumes its new form in the post-Citizens United era, the credit or the blame goes mostly to him.
Reblogged from thepoliticalnotebook
Link: The FBI is asking Internet companies not to oppose a controversial proposal that would require firms, including Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, and Google, to build in backdoors for government surveillance. . . . The FBI general counsel’s office has drafted a proposed law that the bureau claims is the best solution: requiring that social-networking Web sites and providers of VoIP, instant messaging, and Web e-mail alter their code to ensure their products are wiretap-friendly.“If you create a service, product, or app that allows a user to communicate, you get the privilege of adding that extra coding,” an industry representative who has reviewed the FBI’s draft legislation told CNET.
Moreover, for anyone who defends the Obama administration here and insists that the U.S. Government simply must have access to all forms of human communication: does that also apply to in-person communication? Should home and apartment builders be required to install monitors in every room they build to ensure that the Government can surveil all human communications in order to prevent threats to national security and public safety? I believe someone once wrote a book about where this mindset inevitably leads. The very idea that no human communication should ever be allowed to take place beyond the reach of the Government is definitive authoritarianism, which is why Saudi Arabia and the UAE — and their American patron-ally — have so vigorously embraced it.
Greenwald points out that the FBI does not need this, because they can go to a judge, get a warrant, and use traditional surveillance when it’s necessary. “But what about encryption?!” Well:
the problem cited by the FBI to justify this new power is a total pretext: “investigators encountered encrypted communications only one time during 2009′s wiretaps” and, even then, “the state investigators told the court that the encryption did not prevent them from getting the plain text of the messages.” As usual, fear-mongering over national security and other threats is the instrument to justify massive new surveillance powers that will extend far beyond their claimed function.
I’m profoundly disappointed in the Obama administration’s record on civil rights and privacy. I expected better from a president who is a Constitutional law scholar.
tl;dr: The very idea that no human communication should ever be allowed to take place beyond the reach of the Government is definitive authoritarianism
1,038 notes
Reblogged from wilwheaton
"Isn’t it crazy that we’re both Half-Kenyan dudes from Illinois who went to Harvard, who’ve been on the cover of Rolling Stone, and play basketball, and have resoundingly good looks?"
- Tom Morello, asked today by a reporter: “If you had one minute with Barack Obama, what would you say to him?” (via buzzfeed)
Quote of the day. (via shortformblog)
Quote of the day. (via shortformblog)
(Source:soundcloud.com)
571 notes
Reblogged from shortformblog
Link: Welcome to Florida. Beware of gunmen standing their ground.
But to grant private citizens — untrained, unsupervised, beholden only to their individual thoughts, biases and capabilities — the very same standards as we give sworn, trained law officers? To allow them to walk the streets and apply deadly force as they see fit, with only their own sense of their own reasonableness to guide them? Really?
The state of Florida and others like it have lost all sense.
That these laws sailed through legislatures and were signed by governors is indicative of a craven national culture, a panicked bunker mentality that now approaches the pathological. Despite becoming the most incarcerative society in the history of the planet, despite spending more and more of our national treasure on prisons and probation officers, drug courts and sentencing judges, despite the elimination of parole and the proliferation of mandatory sentencing, we are still ever more angry, ever more lethal, ever more afraid. Based on the scope and reach of our criminal justice system, Americans are now either the most evil people in modern history, or our view of ourselves, our neighbors and our national collective has been utterly corrupted by our own cowardice and rage.
My country lost its mind in 2001, and I don’t know if it will ever find it again.
302 notes
Reblogged from wilwheaton
This is fucking awful. Perfect picture of our times. theyoungradical:thephrygiancap:
The elderly man being attacked by an Athens (Greece) cop in this photo is not a member of the black bloc or a nobody. It is Manolis Glezos, the Greek national hero who, on the 30th of May 1941 tore down the swastika flag from the Acropolis, an act for which he suffered torture and imprisonment. It was the first public act of the Resistance in Greece, only a month after the Nazi take-over.
Who would have dreamed that seventy years later, a dirty coward wearing a uniform serving the capitalists that do not even deserve to wipe the soles of his feet has the gall to touch/assault him?
(Source:thephrygiancap)
2,329 notes
Reblogged from ostrichridingcowboy
good:
Attention sports fans:
SOPA is coming for you too.
It might not shock you to learn that people posting highlights online usually haven’t gone through the process of acquiring the copyrights for the footage. Under SOPA, not only would the individuals be criminally liable for uploading copyrighted material, the websites would be, too. YouTube could be forced to shut down unless it found a way of policing the 48 hours of video uploaded every minute. And because [the video] I link to above are likely copyright violations, this magazine and I would be criminals, too.
Read more about How SOPA Would Hurt Sports Fans at GOOD.is
Reblogged from goodThis Is All Kinds Of Wrong of the Day: A rather worrisome bit of censoring took place today at the House of Representatives, which had a split-second pro-forma session this morning.
A Democratic effort to force an up-or-down vote on the Senate’s payroll tax cut extension plan was hastily halted by Speaker Pro Tempore Michael Fitzpatrick (R-PA), who swiftly adjourned the House without acknowledging Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer’s repeated cries of “Mr. Speaker.”
Despite being rudely shutdown by Fitzpatrick, Hoyer went on to have his say, excoriating Republicans for allowing the tax cut to expire despite the potential damage to the already struggling economy.
As Hoyer was yielding to another Democrat, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), ranking member on the House Budget Committee, the mic suddenly cut out, followed shortly by the footage.
C-SPAN later tweeted that it “has no control over the U.S. House TV cameras – the Speaker of the House does,” suggesting that someone in House Speaker John Boehner’s office ordered the live feed off the air.
Less than a year ago, C-SPAN’s asked Boehner for permission to install privately-operated cameras in the House. That request was denied.
Absolutely disgusting.
Stop saying “Both sides are responsible for how screwed up the congress is,” Teabaggers; it simply isn’t true.
(Source:thedailywhat)
Reblogged from wilwheaton
Link: STOP SOPA, SAVE THE INTERNET
Google knows it. Viacom knows it. The Chamber of Commerce knows it. Internet democracy groups know it. BoingBoing knows it. But, the Internet hasn’t been told yet — we’re going to get blown away by the end of the year. The worst bill in Internet history is about to become law. Law is very real here in the United States and legal language is often different than stated intentions — this law would give government and corporations the power to block sites like BoingBoing over infringing links on at least one webpage posted by their users. Believe the EFF, Public Knowledge, Google when they say this bill is about much more than copyright, it’s about the Internet and free speech everywhere.
The MPAA, RIAA, Hollywood knows that they have been flying in CEOs of as many companies as possible, recruiting people to get petition signups at malls in California, and here’s the big point— they know they have gotten their message through to Congress — the worst bill in Internet history, the one where government and their corporations get unbelievable power to take down sites, threaten payment processors into stopping payment to sites on a blacklist, and throw people in jail for posting ordinary content is about to pass before the end of this year. The only thing that is going to stop Hollywood from owning the Internet and everything we do, is if there is a big surprise Internet backlash starting right now.
PROTECT IP (S. 968)/SOPA (HR. 3261) creates the first system for Internet censorship - this bill has sweeping provisions that give the government and corporations leeway and legal cover for taking down sites “by accident,” mistakenly, or for NOT doing “enough” to protect the interests of Hollywood. These bills that are moving very quickly through Congress and can pass before Christmas aim to give the US government and corporations the ability to block sites over infringing links posted by their users and give ISPs the release to take any means to block peoples’ sites, including slowing down your connection. That’s right, some say this bill is a workaround to net neutrality and is bigger than net neutrality.
This is the worst piece of Internet legislation in history - the lawmakers who have been sponsoring (Leahy, Lamar Smith, Conyers) this bill need to be shamed by the Internet community for wasting taxpayer dollars on a bill that would break the very fabric of the Internet, create an Internet blacklist, kill jobs and great startup companies, huge blogs, and social networks.
1,680 notes
Reblogged from wilwheaton
Another example of the true class war on the poor and working class.thenewrepublic:
Why does Michelle Bachmann want to eliminate the tax credit that kept 3 million children out of poverty last year?
Yesterday she announced a new plan to hike taxes on those at the bottom of the income scale: eliminating the Earned Income Tax Credit. The EITC is a tax credit for families with children that make less than $36,000 per year.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities indicates that families mostly use the EITC to pay for necessities, repair homes, maintain vehicles that are needed to commute to work, and in some cases, obtain additional education or training to boost their employability and earning power.
Photo courtesy of thinkprogress.com.
Reblogged from thenewrepublicThis guy is my fucking hero!
New York Observer: Exclusive “Occupy Wall Street” Unaired Fox Footage (by mavgirl69
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Reblogged from michellejeannine
I just watched this on UCSB TV and was inspired and also appalled. Bill Moyers is a true great American that has covered everything from poetry and philosophy to politics and the divide that is tearing us apart. Watch and learn.
“Bill Moyers examines the deteriorating and increasingly corrupt state of affairs that our government has devolved into and the accompanying divisiveness sweeping the country. Is there hope for things to improve? For the first time in his life, Moyers isn’t optimistic.”
(Source:youtube.com)
