Sen. McCain (R-AZ) introduces legislation allowing the FBI to access your browsing history and email data without a warrant. Because National Security Letters aren't enough, I guess. If you're tempted to rationalize this by saying "Republicans aren't coming after my browsing history," then remember that Democrats also win elections on occasion. Of course, if President Obama really, really wanted to take everyone's guns away, he would've done that back when he had a 70-seat House majority and a filibuster-proof Senate majority.
Speaking of guns, Andy Greenberg at Wired says the "homemade AR-15 industry" is "surging" after the Orlando shootings. That's a bit of an overstatement, though -- Cody Wilson's corporation sells around four of their $1500 AR-15 gun millers daily, and that spiked to 11 a few days after Orlando, but that's still eleven, in a country of 300 million people; I could just as easily tell you my blog traffic doubled during the 2008 bailout, without telling you what embarrassingly small number it doubled from or to. Anyway, I can easily imagine gun-making corporations deciding that there are some forms of gun control they like after all, and I can also imagine 3-D printers one day showing Mr. Wilson's gun millers the door to obsolescence.
Talking Points Memo editor Josh Marshall wonders if British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's "unreserved" opposition to Great Britain leaving the EU will "doom" Labour, mainly because it puts another wedge between the Labour establishment and its "traditional working-class base." Read the whole thing; it's a tremendous analysis. And, you know, you can support Great Britain leaving the EU without being a racist -- if I were Greece, I'd leave the EU just to be able to use my own currency again! -- but Mr. Corbyn has whiffed on that opportunity, which makes me think that, if he ever becomes Prime Minister, he'll be as co-opted as the rest of them.
Ho hum, Marco Rubio is running for re-election to the Senate after all. I don't care that he "went back on his word" (though he did so pretty spectacularly!), since I never took him at his word, but I bet he finds re-election rather tougher than his 2010 election, when he ran against Charlie Crist and a guy named Meek. Not that Patrick Murphy and Alan Grayson don't have their problems, but Mr. Rubio will only face one of them, and their problems don't include "is obviously an empty suit" or "went to bat for the notorious for-profit college industry." (Oh, and Mr. Rubio could also lose the primary to a wealthy Trump-hugger -- which could make either Mr. Murphy or Mr. Grayson the second-luckiest man in America, after Florida's other Senator, Bill Nelson.)
FEC filings show that Donald Trump has, in recent months, diverted about 20% of his campaign's funds back into businesses he owns. That's rather worse than all the useless horse-race analysis about his campaign not having very much money to begin with, and would be weapons-grade PR for Mrs. Clinton -- unless her State Department emails reveal her peddling her influence within our government to Clinton Foundation donors, as some have suggested they might.
Finally, a Tennessee House candidate puts up a billboard saying "Make America White Again" (and there's some disagreement about who, exactly, took it down). So Donald Trump, with a vital assist from the "liberal" media, has made it OK to fly your white supremacist freak flag again. And if Democrats somehow manage to win back both Houses of Congress and the Presidency in 2016, you'll see a lot more of these assholes running for Congress in 2018 -- and, since Democrats never do anything good with their majorities, a lot of these assholes will win. How do we prevent that? Mainly by demanding that whoever's in power, regardless of party, do right by us -- until they do right by us. It may not work right away, but duty is duty.
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