Is this country still under the rule of law? Decreasingly so, even for American citizens. Watch this short discussion about Jose Padilla (on Shepard Smith's show) and you'll see shameful conduct and policies Barack Obama has in common with George W. Bush: The fact that thePatriot Act will be extended is equally incredible. We're trying really hard to keep up with China on violation of basic human rights.
Former Senator Russ Feingold has taken on Citizen's United by founding Progressives United:
Launching on Wednesday, Progressives United is an attempt to to build a grassroots effort aimed at mitigating the effects of, and eventually overturning, the Supreme Court's infamous Citizens United decision that opened the floodgates to corporate spending in the U.S. electoral system. In addition to online mobilization, the political action committee (PAC) will support progressive candidates at the local, state and national levels, as well as holding the media and elected officials accountable on the group's key priorities.Here's more on Feingold and his new organization from Huffpo.
Glenn Greenwald discusses a recently disclosed corporate plan to sabotage the careers of supporters of Wikileaks such as Greenwald.
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Glenn Greenwald develops this story in detail on his site.This simple and elegant physics experiment makes me wish I could show this device to a classroom full of children.
According to Truthout, Bill Moyers recently gave a talk at History Makers, and had this disturbing information: well documented facts often backfire:
As Joe Keohane reported last year in The Boston Globe, political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency "deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information." He was reporting on research at the University of Michigan, which found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts were not curing misinformation. "Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger." You can read the entire article online. I won't spoil it for you by a lengthy summary here. Suffice it to say that, while "most of us like to believe that our opinions have been formed over time by careful, rational consideration of facts and ideas and that the decisions based on those opinions, therefore, have the ring of soundness and intelligence," the research found that actually "we often base our opinions on our beliefs ... and rather than facts driving beliefs, our beliefs can dictate the facts we chose to accept. They can cause us to twist facts so they fit better with our preconceived notions."