Here’s Why the NRA Won and Gabby Giffords and Mike Bloomberg Lost | Mother Jones

And as a partial counterpoint to the WSJ article on the same subject, I post this for your consideration.  In a nutshell, the progressives at Mother Jones see gun supporters in the same bile-green light of disgust and noblesse oblige as they have always.   Mother’s view of the NRA, however, as some disembodied corporate entity unrelated to the will (and money) of a large number of American patriots is logically dissonant.  I.e.:

Money, a tragic moment, and public support do not equal political power

Mother Jones —By Andy Kroll | Thu Apr. 18, 2013 1:45 PM PDT

On NBC’s Meet the Press last month, National Rifle Association honcho Wayne LaPierre, the face of the American gun lobby, delivered this message to New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg: “He’s going to find out that this is a country of the people, by the people, and for the people, and he can’t spend enough of his $27 billion to try to impose his will on the American public. He can’t buy America.” The day before, Bloomberg had announced that he would spend $12 million of his own money on an ad blitz pressing members of Congress to pass new legislation expanding background checks for gun purchases. LaPierre went on national television to tell the mayor that all those millions wouldn’t make the difference in the fight in Congress over new gun laws.

Guess what? LaPierre was right…

Project censored top 10: The expanding police state tops the annual list of stories underreported by the mainstream media | Boulder Weekly

Project censored: The expanding police state tops the annual list of stories under-reported by the mainstream media, By Yael Chanoff – Thursday, October 11,2012

People who get their information exclusively from mainstream media sources may be surprised at the lack of enthusiasm on the left for President Barack Obama in this crucial election. But that’s probably because they weren’t exposed to the full online furor sparked by Obama’s continuation of his predecessor’s overreaching approach to national security, such as signing the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, which allows the indefinite detention of those accused of supporting terrorism, even U.S. citizens.

We’ll never know how this year’s election would be different if the corporate media adequately covered the NDAA’s indefinite detention clause and many other recent attacks on civil liberties. What we can do is spread the word and support independent media sources that do cover these stories. That’s where Project Censored comes in.

Sixth Circuit Rules That Pinging a Cell Phone to Determine Its Location is Not a 4th Amendment “Search” | Volokh

The decision handed down this morning is United States v. Skinner, and it was 2-1 on the Fourth Amendment merits. The defendant used a pre-paid cell phone obtained by providing false identity information (also known as a “burner“) to communicate with co-conspirators as he brought a motor home filled with marijuana from Arizona from Tennessee. Agents learned the cell phone number that the defendant was using and obtained a court order requiring the cell phone company to disclose location information of the phone to the agents. The government used the location information to track the car for three days, eventually catching up to the car ata rest stop in Texas. Local police brought out a dog to sniff for marijuana; the dog alerted for the presence of drugs inside; and the search of the car revealed 1,100 pounds of marijuana inside.