Crime is down in the border areas of Arizona, except of course, where the right-wing is able to execute their policy ideas.

Danny Flowers, accompanied by Kevin McKendree on piano — Reason To Try.

If you’ve been suspecting that the country is rapidly becoming stupider and loonier, why, you’d be correct, sir or ma’am. Numerous mainstream media outlets have recently hosted right-wing “Atlas Shrugs” blogger Pamela Geller to discuss the controversy surrounding a proposed Islamic community center set to be built blocks away from Ground Zero. However, Geller’s history of outrageous, [...]

Since the Congress punted on the issue of a woman’s right to choose in the Affordable Care Act, the battle has moved to the states, where it’s been playing out for decades and where anti-choice activists have traditionally held the upper hand. In states across the country, legal abortion access is restricted, hampered and larded up with all sorts of other obstacles. One of the few recourses for those wanting to keep available this legal medical procedure is the courts. And once again, a federal judge has ruled that the law must take precedence over the whims of those who want to punish women and restrict their medical options. This time, it happened in Nebraska.

A few weeks ago, some polling suggested a minor increase in support for the new health care law, but recent polling indicates that is likely not the case. Three new polls show little improvement and even some loss in support for the law. Polls from Pew (approve 35 percent, disapprove 47), CBS News (approve 36, disapprove 49) and PPP (PDF) (support 40, 53) show the law remains very unpopular.

It’s summer in an election year, and that’s the time for the deficit peacocks to come out of hibernation and strut their feathers, letting everyone know that they care – very much! – about deficits. This is a bipartisan phenomenon. On one side of the aisle, Republicans want to freeze discretionary spending, borrowing an idea from the other side of the aisle, from Claire McCaskill (D-MO). She at least tried to sound reasonably sane, but the impact of her preferred policy would be pretty negative.

Senate Dems are making the final push on financial reform this week, but will big banks really change the way they do business? Or will we still be pawns in a game rigged in their favor? I caught up with Elizabeth Warren to talk about the need to reform Wall Street culture, the pernicious influence of bank lobbies, and the debt-fueled threat to America’s middle class.

Judge Lewis Kaplan has basically concluded that if the government can persuasively argue that government believed the torture necessary at the time, then they can torture a detainee as long as he still has intelligence value without infringing on the detainee’s right to a speedy trial.

The New York Times turns over valuable op-ed space to a former Bush OMB official who uses it to obscure it was his and OMB’s job to oversee how effective Interior and Minerals Management Service (MMS) were in promoting and regulating offshore oil drilling.

I haven’t seen anyone else write about this, but David Kurtz described a conference call with senior Administration officials that sounded awful belligerent about the terrorist group al-Shabab. As in “next war comin’” kind of belligerent.