Pope Francis writes apostolic exhortation, saying (among other things) that "(a)s long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world's problems or, for that matter, to any problems." If that's how he feels, then why would I care if he's anti-abortion? Too many pro-choice politicians would let the Chamber of Commerce write all their legislation. They're less our ally than the Pope.
Mother Jones reports on our government's internet kill switch. Wait, what? you may be saying. And yes, though we managed to beat back a Joe Lieberman internet kill switch bill in the last Congress, Tha Bush Mobb, in concert with the big telecom corporations, devised a plan in 2006 to shut down communications networks in a time of "emergency," a plan called SOP 303 -- a plan Mr. Obama has, naturally, embraced since taking over. And there's legal precedent for such a plan going back at least to World War I, though not necessarily Constitutional precedent. Any good news? Maybe: an FOIA lawsuit may compel DHS (sic) to release SOP 303 early next year.
The Supreme Court will take up the Obama Administration's birth control mandate. A few corporate lackeys hope that the Court will rule on that the way they did on Citizens United, where the Court treated corporations as people for the purpose of making some political campaign contributions. But if John Roberts becomes Super-Literal Man -- that is, if he asks how a corporation can have a religion, or what specific religious doctrine prohibits paying for birth control -- they might find themselves disappointed.
Ho hum, the "liberal" media pounds away at another "Obamacare horror story" without giving you all the facts you need to know. Long story short: a woman in Washington state, who has a son with ADHD, didn't qualify for federal subsidies as the state had led her to believe -- but the state still found almost-free health care for her son via Medicaid. The woman might still be unhappy (which is totally understandable, given what she thought she was getting), but she can also still get good healthcare at about half the cost she might have gotten crappy healthcare last year -- if, ah, anyone had been willing to insure her last year.
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