We have just learned that a FISA judge ruled a year ago that our FBI has been improperly searching through all the personal data our NSA has been hoovering up. And THAT! Is the MOST! SURPRISING! THING! I! Have EVER! HEARD! Who could have predicted that data collected about alleged foreign perpetrators would sweep up so much data on Americans, and that law enforcement would use that data? Who besides "anyone who thought about it for a minute," I mean? And you like how our FBI calls their investigations "assessments" so they can justify not following our Constitution and getting warrants?
William Rivers Pitt at TruthOut reminds us that "Abandoning the Kurds is Not an Anti-war Move." You probably didn't need that reminder, being a subtle enough thinker thanks to your Master of Science at The School of Politicians Constantly Lying to You, but maybe you know someone who's got too much else to think about who needs to hear that the only two choices in foreign policy are not "stay in Syria forever" and "let all the Kurds die." (Dig, also, the National Security Council source who says our super-awesome greatest deal-maker ever President got "rolled" by Turkey.)
Book-length study reveals that, for the first time ever, the 400 richest American families pay a lower average tax rate than the bottom half of American families. BUT WHATZ ABOUTZ TEH 47 PERCENTZ WHO PAYS TEH NOTHINGZ!!!!!, say the haters. Well, the study takes into account all the things that right-wing trope doesn't, not just by including state and local taxes, but by including "indirect taxes" like business licenses and drivers' licenses, which cost the same for everyone and thus represent a larger percentage of working families' income than they do of the super-rich's income. Now cue right-wingers moving the goal-posts and cherry-picking irrelevancies.
You heard someone say Elizabeth Warren lied about being told to leave that teaching job she had years ago because she was pregnant? Well, they're wrong. The minute I read that Ms. Warren's employer actually voted to renew her contract and accepted her resignation with regret, I said "well, that doesn't actually prove that no one told her she shouldn't be working there because of her pregnancy"; I'd say it's gratifying that people have to go this far to prove her wrong, but lies travel halfway around the world before the truth gets its pants on, as they say, and our super-corrupt President did successfully attach the "corruption" label to Hillary Clinton, so he'll also try to attach the "liar" label to Ms. Warren, even though he's the biggest liar we've ever seen; she'll be harder to take down, because she actually has a real agenda, unlike Mrs. Clinton, whose only agenda was victory. I guess right-wingers like lies OK as long as they're big. Or "bigly."
Finally, Rudy Giuliani, who almost fled the country the other day, compares his and our President's predicament favorably to the Salem witch trials, and thankfully Bess Levin at Vanity Fair corrects the record about the Salem witch trials' supposed "fairness." When will right-wingers finally tire of their heroes constantly whining? They won't, because they characterize their own whining, and the whining of their heroes, as legitimate, and they characterize the legitimate grievances of folks who aren't on their "team" as "whining." They are truly irredeemable, and I leave their souls to God.
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