Rand Paul: telling Americans that the NSA spies on us all does not make it right to do so.

I disagree with his "cheating spouse" analogy, since I do not believe monogamy should be a requirement for love.

Republicans have seized on a study that predicts that increasing the minimum wage would eliminate 500,000 jobs but lift 900,000 workers out of poverty.

The minimum wage needs to be combined with a welfare system for those who are unemployed. That way, all low-paid workers benefit, whether they are still working or not.

To work out an example, suppose half a million jobs are eliminated, and 50 million minimum-wage workers get a raise. If those workers pay 3% of their increase in income as tax, that would cover the costs of supporting the other half-million, and all will be better off than they are now.

This sort of system to transfer income from the rich (who have grabbed an ever-increasing share) to the rest is exactly what we need.

Republican state politicians in Tennessee bullied Volkswagen workers, who then voted not to unionize.

The cleanup manager at the Hanford nuclear facility was fired after informing the public about safety faults.

Previous whistleblowers were fired, too. I guess we can't believe anything the employees say unless they get fired.

More about the protests in Venezuela.

I do not find it implausible that the US has helped organize the protests. I do not find it implausible that a provocateur (either working for the Venezuelan government or working for the US) has killed people on both sides.

In any case, it is clearly wrong to prosecute the leader of a protest because violence breaks out later. This resembles what the US did to the Haymarket martyrs.