"Substantial reason to believe" allegations against Rep. McMorris Rodgers

ABC New is reporting: The onetime employee was Todd Winer, a former spokesman for McMorris Rodgers who told the ethics office that he wrote campaign speeches for her on his work computer during business hours, and that he and other staffers frequently wrote news releases and did other work for the campaign on government time….

Fact-checking a claim about Koch versus union spending

I signed a petition from Credo Action “urging PBS affiliate WGBH to remove David Koch from the Board of Trustees and Science Visiting Council because of his anti-science positions.”  After I signed the petition, it through up a fund-raising appeal from ActBlue containing the following claim: The Koch brothers spent over $400 million in 2012—more…

The Anti-Wisdom of Eckhart Tolle

Many spiritual teachers and pundits say things similar to what Eckhart Tolle said: “The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but [always] your thoughts about it.”   In other words, suffering comes from yourself, not from your perceived enemies.  While it’s true that much suffering is self-made, it’s a gross and perverse exaggeration to…