How long has it been since you heard someone--personally or in the media--say one of the following:

++private schools outperform public schools

++religious schools outperform public schools

++charter schools outperform public schools

A couple of days?  Hours?  Minutes?

The religious right--hell, the right, period--is extremely fond of working up a froth over the supposed liberal censorship of competing ideas on America's college campuses.  The implication being, of course, that they would never, ever censor ideas, not them, not the keepers of the "founding father flame of liberty."

You've probably already guessed what comes next.

Poor Senator McCain. Did he really think this new-n-improved strategy of his was going to work? At all?........

In order for the White House to keep pushing their "the economy is robust fantasy, people have to keep believing the contrary of what their eyes and experience tell them.  That requires the cooperation of both (1) the government agencies responsible for caretaking the economy, and (2) a sizable portion of the business press.

Here's an update to Six's recent bankruptcy posting and my comment on the fact that bankruptcy is soaring in many of the developed economies.

Yesterday, the President gave a little talk at the Republican National Committee Gala held at DAR-Constitution Hall in D.C.

Read and weep, or laugh hysterically, but please..no vomiting on the keyboard.

This should help the Republicans attract black voters, huh?

You may have noticed a bit of an attitude change in the White House over the need to keep Congress in the dark on details of the NSA spying program(s).  Initially, they refused to brief almost everybody, all while publicly offering up the misleading claim that "appropiate members of Congress have been briefed."

Having been reassured by a host of Republicans on recent television shows that all is well and good and thriving, I started to wonder some future headlines might look like.

Like these:

When you call something "chilling" it means that it sends a kind of shock through you because of its insidiousness, danger, or the like.  In constitutional law, a "chilling effect" is the voluntary suppression of certain behavior or speech as a result of a government action that makes you thin that the behavior or speech is going to get your butt in hot water with the government.

Recent reports about the federal government tracking the phone records of reporters who write stories on subjects the government doesn't like are chilling in both respects.

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