Dear Mr. Holder: Here’s Why Edward Snowden Can’t Get a Fair Trial in Your National Security State

Former US Attorney General Eric Holder said in an interview that what NSA whistle blower Edward Snowden did was illegal but added “We can certainly argue about the way in which Snowden did what he did, but I think that he actually performed a public service by raising the debate we engaged in and by the changes that we made . . .”

But nobody in the Obama administration still in office ever said that Snowden did a public service. He certainly did, since the NSA and other intelligence organizations had gone rogue. In essence, they unilaterally abrogated the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution. PBS Frontline alleged that the NSA did not even read Obama into their warrantless surveillance of millions of Americans until 2010! In a system like that, the president isn’t really the president– the Deep State does as it pleases.

Inside The Trump University ‘Playbook’

WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Tuesday unsealed nearly 400 pages of documents related to a lawsuit over the for-profit Trump University, revealing the aggressive and predatory practices that Trump U. salespeople were encouraged to use on potential participants of the real estate seminar, which has been accused of being a scam.

Eric Holder says Edward Snowden performed a 'public service'

Chicago (CNN)Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder says Edward Snowden performed a "public service" by triggering a debate over surveillance techniques, but still must pay a penalty for illegally leaking a trove of classified intelligence documents.

Hillary Clinton’s big donor problem isn’t going away: Her history of taking Wall Street cash exemplifies all that’s wrong in U.S. politics

In a 2011 interview with the Indian newspaper The Siasat Daily, Indian-American businessman and longtime friend and financial supporter of the Clintons, Sant Chatwal, was unusually candid (for a big donor, at least) about his experiences in American politics as a wealthy donor:

“In politics nothing comes free. You have to write cheques in the American political system. I know the system. I had to work very hard. So I did as much as I could,” said Chatwal, who was co-chair for Hillary Clinton’s presidential exploratory committee in 2008. He continued: “I was interested in building a relationship between India and America… [So I] invested a lot of money in [Michael Dukakis]…But he lost the election because he failed in the debate. Then I thought, let me bet on [Bill] Clinton…I bet on [Clinton]. He became president. Already we were good friends like a family.”

The long con of military decline: How the right uses the armed forces to lie about America

If you set yourself the task of watching the Republican presidential debates, you may have noticed that when the candidates talk about the military they careen between declaring America as the greatest, most powerful military force in history and repeated declarations of decline, decimation, and degeneration. These ideas seem like unusual partners, perhaps even enemies, but the happy coexistence of contradictory propositions is one of the hallmarks of popular conservative thought.

Illogic is wonderful stuff as long as it generates political yardage and doesn’t upset the mental furniture.

GOP’s poverty proposal: What to expect in the first of Paul Ryan’s big policy initiatives

All the news about Paul Ryan these days centers on the state of his relationship with the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, but the speaker is also apparently getting ready to churn out some new policy recommendations for the House Republican Caucus. As The New York Times reported, Ryan and the House GOP are going to start churning out one new policy proposal a week after the Memorial Day holiday, and the first product to roll off the line “will focus on combatting poverty.”

Christy Clark gave $150,000 to a Haida Gwaii chief in business with her brother then forgot all about it

John Horgan didn't hold back while questioning Premier Christy Clark on a rather puzzling $150,000 provincial grant paid personally authorized by the premier, that ended up indirectly benefitting her brother.

A donation that appears to have no paper trail, policy or even a record that the request for the donation was ever made. The donation went to a First Nations school in Haida Gwaii, that oddly enough is under federal responsibility not provincial, to complete a feasibility study on building a new gym for their school (it's worth noting that there had already been two of these studies done on the same school in the past 10 years paid for by federal funds).

12 Fringe Conspiracy Theories Embraced By A Man Who Might Be The Next President

You can find conspiracy theorists on street corners, call-in radio shows and social media.

Soon, you might be able to find one in the Oval Office.

Generally, presidential candidates tend to shy away from conspiracy theories. They involve a mixture of paranoia and gullibility that seems ill-suited for someone seeking access to America’s nuclear codes.

What Silicon Valley's billionaires don't understand about the first amendment

No major American cultural force is more opposed to examination and more active in suppressing it today than Silicon Valley. So when it was revealed this week that Facebook board member Peter Thiel had been secretly bankrolling a lawsuit to inflict financial ruin on the news and gossip site Gawker, Silicon Valley cheered.

The investor Vinod Khosla wrote on Twitter that the “press gets very uppity when challenged”. And that these bad journalists need “to be taught lessons”.

The Surge Of Trump-Fueled Anti-Semitism Is Hitting Jewish Reporters Who Cover Him

Donald Trump has an anti-Semitism problem.

Granted, the newly minted Republican nominee for president has long insisted that his is not himself anti-Semitic, and regularly points out that his daughter is a Jewish convert. Yet Trump has done little to quell a rising tide of anti-Semitism among his supporters since launching his campaign last year: Trump initially refused to disavow anti-Semitic Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, a Trump surrogate implied at a rally that Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders should convert from Judaism and “meet Jesus,” prominent anti-Semites went on radio shows to encourage their supporters to "get out and vote" for Trump, and a man was filmed leaving a Trump rally shouting in Cleveland shouting “Go to fucking Auschwitz.”