Politics

Environmental impact surprisingly big. http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2014/aug/08/drugs-toilet-pharmaceutical-pollution

Not quite as trivial as it may sound. New York Times to use the word 'torture' when describing torture http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/aug/07/new-york-times-torture-in-style-update

http://wonkette.com/556104/the-sarah-palin-fartknocker-report-presented-by-fartknocker

Elizabeth Warren Quietly Racked Up A Nice Win By Linette Lopez Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) got her way on Tuesday when the Federal Reserve rejected the living will plans for most Wall Street banks. Barclays, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan Chase all had their plans rejected.* The concept of living wills was born of the financial crisis, when regulators and politicians realized that they had no orderly way of unwinding systemically important banks that had failed. They didn't want to see another Lehman bankruptcy that would take three years to resolve. The wills then became a part of Dodd-Frank, so banks were legally required to write their …

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/aug/04/worlds-top-pr-companies-rule-out-working-with-climate-deniers

So instead of continuing to pollute the Joke for the Day thread with political cartoons, here's a new thread, in the right forum, for political funnies.

...not all of them strictly politicians, but anyway. 1.Catalin Grigoriu / (Shutterstock.com) 2.Silberkorn / (Shutterstock.com) 3.Evgeniya Uvarova / (Shutterstock.com) 4.STILLFX / (Shutterstock.com) 5.STILLFX / (Shutterstock.com) 6.STILLFX / (Shutterstock.com) 7.Dirima / (Shutterstock.com) 8.oneinchpunch / (Shutterstock.com) 9.Max Bukovski / (Shutterstock.com) 10.pio3 / (Shutterstock.com) 11.Menno Schaefer / (Shutterstock.com) 12.Balazs Kovacs Images / (Shutterstock.com) 13.Evgeny Atamanenko / (Shutterstock.com) 14.romrf / (Shutterstock.com) 15.megainarmy / (Shutterstock.com) 16.Burben / (Shutterstock.com) 17.Khoroshunova Olga / (Shutterstock.com) 18.Tomasz Romski / (Shut…

The Law of the Land In Seventeen Syllables Supreme Court Haiku http://www.supremecourthaiku.com/home

http://m.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/federal-review-stalled-after-finding-forensic-errors-by-fbi-lab-unit-spanned-two-decades/2014/07/29/04ede880-11ee-11e4-9285-4243a40ddc97_story.html

Deliciously idiotic. http://thinkprogress.org/immigration/2014/07/31/3466389/boehner-tells-obama-take-executive-action-but-lawsuit/

Stephen Colbert Buys TheSarahPalinChannel.com, Promises His Own 'Angry Echo Chamber' The Huffington Post | By Carol Hartsell Sarah Palin just learned a valuable lesson about starting your own web channel: make sure to buy up any similar domain names, such as, say, one that simply puts "The" in front of your URL. On Tuesday, after taking a look at Palin's new project, SarahPalinChannel.com, "a safe space where like-minded folks can hear things they already agree with from someone whose opinion they already know," Colbert gleefully announced that he had purchased TheSarahPalinChannel.com earlier that day. So far, the channel is sparse on content, featuring only a…

...John Pistole, the head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), said on Thursday that the bomb did not detonate because Abdulmutallab had been wearing the same underwear for more than two weeks. "He had it with him for over two weeks," Mr Pistole said at the Aspen Security Forum. Asked by his interviewer whether the bomb's fuse had become "damp" from two weeks of wear, Mr Pistole said: "Let's say it was degraded. We're getting kind of personal now."... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/al-qaeda/10989843/Underwear-bomber-plot-failed-because-he-wore-same-pants-for-two-weeks.html

And the beat goes on. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/24/us-terrorism-watchlist-work-no-fly-list

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100027691/chinas-terrifying-debt-ratios-poised-to-breeze-past-us-levels/

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/11/the-ultimate-goal-of-the-nsa-is-total-population-control

Maybe this overstates the point for emphasis, but still. The American Century is over: How our country went down in a blaze of shame We face a triple crisis in foreign policy, economics and democracy. Here's how it all went to hell Michael Lind salon.com Donald Rumsfeld, Jamie Dimon, David Koch (Credit: AP/Rob Carr/Reuters/Keith Bedford/AP/Phelan M. Ebenhack/Photo montage by Salon) In 1914, the American Century began. This year the American Century ended. America’s foreign policy is in a state of collapse, America’s economy doesn’t work well, and American democracy is broken. The days when other countries looked to the U.S. as a successful model of foreign poli…

Browsing in Sen. Sam's utterances sent me to Justice Davis's great Ex parte Milligan decision from 1866. The essence is a ringing defense of core Constitutional protections, only too relevant today. ...The controlling question in the case is this: Upon the facts stated in Milligan's petition, and the exhibits filed, had the military commission mentioned in it jurisdiction, legally, to try and sentence him? Milligan, not a resident of one of the rebellious states, or a prisoner of war, but a citizen of Indiana for twenty years past, and never in the military or naval service, is, while at his home, arrested by the military power of the United States, imprisoned, and, on c…

Pretty on-point, notwithstanding being from Cracked.com... http://www.cracked.com/article_21341_5-ways-every-conspiracy-theory-makes-world-worse.html/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=fanpage&utm_campaign=new+article&wa_ibsrc=fanpage

By Guardian reporters. 7 hours long. The guy just gets more impressive. Highlights: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/18/-sp-edward-snowden-interview-rusbridger-macaskill Transcript: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/18/-sp-edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-interview-transcript

Oldie but goodie.Martyrs, Virgins and Grapes By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF Published: August 4, 2004 The New York Times ''The virgins are calling you,'' Mohamed Atta wrote reassuringly to his fellow hijackers just before 9/11. It has long been a staple of Islam that Muslim martyrs will go to paradise and marry 72 black-eyed virgins. But a growing body of rigorous scholarship on the Koran points to a less sensual paradise -- and, more important, may offer a step away from fundamentalism and toward a reawakening of the Islamic world. Some Islamic theologians protest that the point was companionship, never heavenly sex. Others have interpreted the pleasures quite explicitly; …

Pope Francis continues to be trailblazer by looking to nix celibacy requirement, allow priests to marry In translations of a recent interview, the Pope is quoted as saying he will find a 'solution' to the problem of celibacy — a major shift in the Vatican, which in the past has been intractable on the requirement for priests. BY Denis Hamill NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Monday, July 14, 2014, 9:17 PM It looks like Pope Francis is rethinking the idea of celibacy for clergy, and it’s about time. In a recent interview with the founder of the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Pope Francis was asked about the church’s sex scandals and the requirement that priests be celibate. Th…

Not from The Onion. Austin Drag Queen Impresses President Obama With a Hilarious One-Liner, Gets Fist Bump Last week President Obama was in Austin, Texas and decided to stop by Franklin’s Barbecue for a quick bite to eat. When he got to the register to pay his bill, he met cashier Daniel Webb, who also happens to be a comedian, musician, and an Austin drag queen who sometimes performs under the names ‘Drone Collins’ and ‘Toyota Lopez’. Daniel Webb – Image Credit: AustinChronicle.com Webb slapped the counter and proclaimed, “Equal rights for gay people!” as the president paid for more than $300 worth of takeout. Obama responded by asking if he was gay, to which…

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/13/capital-politics-wikileaks-democracy-market-freedom