SAR #15170

We are held hostage by the NRA.

Doomed: The House has approved giving Obama the authority to negotiate away American sovereignty, 218 to 208. The only hope now would be a no vote once the deed is done, but there has never, not once, been a defeat of a trade agreement once fast track authority has been granted. Again. Best we can hope for is that it is yet another straw...

Junkyard Dogs: NATO's attempt to impress the Russians with the recent naval exercises might have gone better if one of the Polish landing craft hadn't sunk.

Comes The Dawn: Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi. Republicans on their star chamber committee spent Tuesday grilling Clinton insider Sidney Blumenthal about the inner workings of the Clinton's philanthropic and political operations, not about Benghazi. It was never about Benghazi and was always a witch hunt. Yet another one.

Be Prepared: Research suggests that far from being a boon to the American economy, the TPP will essentially extend the losses to American workers far beyond the 5 million jobs lost to NAFTA. 
 
TheFault Is Not In Our Stars... Someday soon it may occur to us that there is something quite wrong with our society and even to suspect that guns may be a significant part not only of our bloody history but our bloody future. People like Lindsey Graham and Rick Santorum who claim it was not a racial shooting but “an attack on Christians” and part of an “religious liberty” should be ashamed, as should those in the South Carolina legislature (where the Confederate flag still flies) who want to expand the right to gun down black congregations. The pretense of self-defense is specious – there are 32 gun homicides for every one justifiable shooting. 
 
If Only: Germany plans to convert 60 former military bases into nature preserves.

Reality Check: Despite the platitudinous report from the EPA declaring fracking innocent of contaminating groundwater supplies, water throughout the Barnett Shale basin is contaminated with "multiple volatile organic carbon compounds - various alcohols, the BTEX family of compounds and several chlorinated compounds - " all of which are “associated” with the fracking industry, as are increases in earthquakes. 
 
Porn O'Graph: Read 'em and reap.