BRAZENLY LIBERAL — a fact-based initiative

I had no illusions.  I didn’t kid myself that he was perfect.  From the start, there were things that bugged me.
He supports the death penalty even as he acknowledges it does little or nothing to deter crime.  (He’s credited with working to reform its application here in Illinois, but from my POV, this is a [...]

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Sometimes patriotism means supporting the government. Sometimes it means defending the country against those who would destroy it during their brief tenure.
In refusing to be bullied into silence, Wired has shown true patriotism.
A file detailing aspects of AT&T’s alleged participation in the National Security Agency’s warrantless domestic wiretap operation is sitting in a San [...]

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I’m not an international superspy. I’m not an agent provocateur. I’m not a private detective, a supergeek hacker, a sophisticated electronics whizz, or a telecommunications expert. I’m a middle-aged woman living on a farm in America’s heartland.
Just to establish my complete lack of any arcane expertise in the area of how to [...]

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Really!  Says so right here.   Last week, a Washington Post/ABC poll showed Americans think having the NSA keep track of all their phone calls is a fine thing. No problem. Go ahead. Be our guest. We can see how tracking our phone calls to Mom will be a critical tool in [...]

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How conservative is the Chicago Tribune? Well, the last Democrat they endorsed for President was Horace Greeley in 1872. We don’t know if it was the mortification of losing to the scandalous Ulysses S. Grant or what, but the only Democrat who has gained their presidential endorsement in the intervening 134 years was [...]

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Click on through to read The Carpetbagger Report’s take on the latest NSA revelations. You’ll be glad you did.
A little taste:
Bush wants us to know that he’s not “trolling” through our personal lives; he’s just allowing a secretive government agency to covertly log every American phone call for secret reasons, without oversight, and with [...]

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Back in December, Bush acknowledged the NSA was conducting surveillance on American citizens’ phone calls, but hastened to assure us it was only international calls and the only people being spied upon were those people with “a clear link to these terrorist networks.”
Those of us who found this less than 100% believable were subject to [...]

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These guys are playing it so close and so coy that even a reliable GOP toady like James Sensenbrenner calls it “stonewalling.”
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales suggested on Thursday for the first time that the president might have the legal authority to order wiretapping without a warrant on communications between Americans that occur exclusively within [...]

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As of this writing, you can still go into a closet, close the door, turn off the light, and pick your nose in private. Don’t count on that lasting much longer.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The National Security Agency could have legally monitored ordinarily confidential communications between doctors and patients or attorneys and their clients, the [...]

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