Well, the Guardian doesn't mince words: "Here’s how much corporations paid US senators to fast-track the TPP bill" is the headline, and the number relating to "how much corporations paid" is -- well, it doesn't matter, really; just know that it's a relatively small number, smaller, I'd think, than the amount of money these corporations hope to make off the TPP, and n.b., also, that while corporations spent less than half as much getting Democratic votes as they did getting Republican ones, Democrats up in 2016 got a lot more than the average.
Juliana DeVries's article in The Nation, "You Can Be Prosecuted for Clearing Your Browser History," sounds like clickbait, but it's not -- it isn't just a friend of the Boston Marathon bombers who could be prosecuted for clearing his browser history during a terrorism investigation, but it could be you, too, even if you don't know a federal investigation is looking for whatever information you've just deleted. Seems unfair, doesn't it? And people get their shorts in a bunch when I say law enforcement personnel sometimes act like spoiled brats.
Amanda Frank at Center for Effective Government notes that fracking proponents oppose both federal and local laws and regulations governing fracking, calling that (politely, I think) a "paradox." Seriously, though, small government advocates need to explain exactly how banning cities and municipalities from enacting their own bans on fracking serves the concept of "small government," rather than the more Earthly concerns corporations have with their own bottom line. My guess is their answer is some form of ZOMG YOU ARE TEH COMMUNIZTZ!!!!
Speaking of "paradoxes," FAIR catches the New York Times describing the large crowds Bernie Sanders has been getting in Iowa while simultaneously telling readers that he's "unelectable." "Unelectable" is what the haters call you when they can't refute your arguments. In a related note, I notice the "liberal" media have also been berating Mrs. Clinton for her stand on "free" trade, but haven't hounded the ten thousand Republican candidates about that matter. Could it be that a Republican saying "yes, I support outsourcing our jobs and nullifying our laws!" wouldn't qualify as "news" to the "liberal" media?
Finally, some good news: the EPA will set limits on airplane emissions, and could begin that process as soon as the end of this week. Let me take a sip of some Hatorade, so I may glean what right-wingers' objections will be: ZOMG EPA KILLZ TEH JOBZ!!!!, ZOMG CLIMATE CHANGE IZ TEH HOAXEZ!!!, it's dumb for our federal government to regulate a global industry. Of course, it's not dumb, when our aircraft account for almost 30 percent of all carbon emissions from aircraft, but even setting that aside, do we routinely give up on doing the right thing because other people aren't doing it?
Comments