Andrew Rudalevige – Trump says he’ll cancel Obama’s ‘unconstitutional’ executive actions. It’s not that easy.

During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump pledged to “cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama.” The good news was that Trump did not simply use the phrase “executive order” to describe every administrative tool presidents can use. As regular Monkey Cage readers know, that simplification is inaccurate. [There’s a big difference between abusing executive orders …

Amanda Marcotte – Texas Will Now Require Funeral Services Whenever a Woman Has an Abortion or a Miscarriage

In June anti-choice activists in Texas suffered a serious setback in their attempts to make abortion as miserable as possible for women. That was when the Supreme Court overturned a series of medically unnecessary regulations enacted for no other reason than to make abortion more onerous, time-consuming and expensive for women. But Texas conservatives are still determined to find ways to punish women …

Deirdre Fulton – To Reclaim Democracy, New Lawsuit Aims to Be ‘Death of the Super PAC’

While most people point to Citizens United as the case that opened the door to big money in U.S. elections, the lesser-known 2010 appeals court ruling in SpeechNow.org v. FEC is perhaps just as blameworthy—one legal scholar says the decision “gave birth to the super PAC takeover of American politics.” Now, a bipartisan group of lawmakers, congressional candidates, and campaign …

Mental health in the 19th century, when soldiers died of homesickness

Abner R Small, a commissioned officer in the 16th Maine Volunteers, was captured by Confederate forces in August 1864 and spent several months as a prisoner of war. In his diary, Small recorded the effects of imprisonment upon his fellow inmates. “They became homesick and disheartened,” he noted. “They … were dying of nostalgia.” Nostalgia, once regarded as a condition …

Leid Stories—Twisted Philanthropy: How the Clintons and the Clinton Foundation Made Billions Mining the World’s Misery Index—08.18.16

Since May, Ortel has been spelling out in great detail how a project chartered initially to build a presidential library and research facility in Arkansas, President Clinton’s home state, illegally was morphed into a global pseudo-philanthropic conglomerate that raked in billions of dollars, ostensibly to support the foundation’s “charity” work. But Ortel says the evidence clearly shows the foundation was operating almost all of its projects illegally, and many major “donations” it received were from foreign governments and well-placed corporations seeking political favors from the Clintons.

Glen Ford – Hillary Stuffs Entire U.S. Ruling Class Into Her Big, Nasty Tent

Hillary Clinton is celebrating in the bloated expanse of the “Big Tent” Democratic Party she and Bill have dreamed of building since their days in the backwaters of Arkansas. Slick Willie and his wife have succeeded in assembling under one party roof nearly the whole of the U.S. ruling class and their hordes of attendants and goons. The scam that …

Meria Heller – Roaring Truth – 08.14.16

Roaring Truth with Meria and Jim Fetzer. Election nightmare 2016;Hillary’s health -is it Parkinsons? Her handler;Tim Kaine;Mike Pence;TPP-NAFTA on steroids;Supreme court replacement? abortion/LGBT rights and Pence;Bernie & Jill Stein;kids aren’t stupid;Pokeman;2 party system? Khan family;Dylann Roof;John Hinckley released;JFK-MLK-RFK conspiracies;Supreme Court stole your vote in 2000 by giving it to Bush; don’t bother fighting with family and friends – your vote doesn’t count…let us count the ways.