Brandon Perkins Posts

For better and especially for worse, the United States Senate knows how to hold onto the traditions of protocol. Mountains of minutia govern the legislative body, from the rules of debate to the election process itself. No where is this more obvious than in the Senate's refusal to give up paper-only filings to the Federal Election Commission. One only needs to check out the Washington Post's story on a Democratic candidate in Iowa for the sheer analog absurdity in our digital world.

One of the Koch Brothers' newest political venture is a Super PAC called Freedom Partners Action Fund — which just sounds like the same jingoistic words they always use thrown into a game of Boggle. Rather than creating issue-oriented ads that allowed donors to remain in the shadows of anonymity, Freedom Partners Action Fund would explicitly support Republican candidates. That slight twist on all of Charles and David Koch's previous endeavors means that the group's donors would have to become public information for the first time.

In 2012, much was made of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act of 2012, or Stock Act, the ethics bill that banned insider trading by members of Congress. Fast forward two years to the present day, when members of Congress are doing everything in their power to exploit the loopholes of that ethics bill, as one staffer has set up a legal defense trust fund that is currently accepting donations.

Every year, the federal government collects 18,000 audits from local governments which received at least $500,000 in federal grants, a potentially vast resource for researchers in a variety of fields. After high profile bankruptcy filings by cities like Detroit and California's Vallejo, economists could learn an incredible amount about how cities and towns dealt with the financial crisis. However, even though part of the filing process is an electronic submission, these records are rarely made available to the public.

Apple is making big privacy claims about its new operating system that's paired with the record-breaking iPhone 6, but there are a few leaks in the policy that suggest a serious over-sale by the company. While data on the iPhone itself may be better protected against government snooping, there's still that pesky iCloud — the massive data warehouse that knows a thing or two about leaks — backing up all the data a user can muster in 64 gigs.

The Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act should be a fairly simple and wholly non-controversial bill, even by Congressional standards. The bill would place the same requirements on Senate candidates that have been in place for House and Presidential candidates for over a decade: File public campaign finance disclosure reports electronically with the FEC.

Yet another report from actual scientists suggests what needs to be accepted as fact by now: the world is burning and humans are at fault. According to Reuters, the World Meteorological Organization said on Tuesday that carbon dioxide concentrations grew faster in 2013 than at any point since reliable records began. The results? A changing climate and extreme weather, all because humans continue to burn fossil fuels.

The tax revenue lost from the exponential growth of corporate inversion is enormous — see Burger King's recent move to Canada — but the companies say they have no choice in the matter. They say it's a responsibility to shareholders. According to a new analysis by the Center for Effective Government, there appears to be one cost-cutting measure that could surely offset the costs of contributing to the society it profits from: CEO pay.

Nearly by definition, bureaucracy operates at a snail's pace. From red tape to hurdles, the English language is filled with idioms and cliches to describe the agonizing effort it takes to see actual change at a bureaucratic level. And yet, the FCC recently responded to a petition for transparency and disclosure in political ads on television and the radio in one week. The best part? It wasn't a slam of the door, but a genuine first step in getting the data of political advertisements online and open to the public.

It almost makes sense on the surface: Police departments across the country receive the military's excess equipment, everything from fax machines to riot shields to "various types of land vehicles." While in effect since 1990, things really skyrocketed after 9/11 and then the de-escalation of involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. The data regarding these acquisitions and the local departments' ability to use them are starting to flood out, and it's just as scary as the images of police militarization that have made Ferguson, Missouri, the center of this debate.

The uncapping of campaign finance laws that stemmed from 2010's Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission SCOTUS decision was immediately heralded as an erosion of democratic ideals. Corporations now had a "voice," exercised by truckloads of money dumped in lawmakers' backyards, and Super PACs sprung up exponentially to increase the volume of America's unending election cycle. All of this talking — read money exchanging — has now created a bureaucratic bottleneck of unintended consequences: A serious roadblock for transparency.

PACER is a terrific acronym, but that's about all the Public Access to Court Electronic Records gets right. By almost all accounts, the system to search and download records constitutionally guaranteed to be made public is outdated, clumsy and loaded with bugs — and incredibly expensive for the average bank account. Now, the administrators at the courts of this country are actively removing cases from this antiquated, constitutionally-mandated access to public records.

The shadowy ties that bind right-wing politicians (and policy) with the increasingly infamous Koch Brothers have been coming to light with grand vigor in recent years. However, a new story by Progressive Inc. and the Center for Media and Democracy is casting light on the ties between Charles Koch and a shadowy right wing organization that fought hard against the civil rights movement.

The Supreme Court's decision on the much-debated Hobby Lobby case — ruling in favor of a business's right to "religious freedom" over its responsibility to provide birth control to its employees — will play out for months to come (most of which the Supreme Court will be on vacation). In light of today's ruling, many people are speaking out on the possible ramifications of the decision, from politicians to pundits.

A tiny white six-sided pill called misoprostol has made quite the journey, from Brazil through Latin America and Mexico to the Southern United States, from an ulcer medication to black market DIY abortion pill. Often called "miso" or Cytotec (the drug's name when it was used primarily for ulcers), the little pill grew its popularity outside of hospitals and clinics. Instead, according the fascinating article in The Atlantic, growing through the hush-hush social circles of Brazilian women looking to "bring back" their period.

A three-fourths of one cent sales tax increase may not sound like a lot, but Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon has launched an all-out offensive on the initiative set to hit the state's ballot in August. It turns out, 75 percent of a penny adds up to an estimated $6.1 billion over ten years — much of that on the breaking backs of the middle class. In a vacuum, the proposal aims to fix Missouri's failing infrastructure, specifically Interstate 70 that goes through Kansas City. However, reality isn't a vacuum.

Senator Cruz posted a query to Facebook last week about the very health care law he has spent much of the last five years demonizing, but probably didn't get the response his trolling had intended. After all, his Facebook friends love him and he hates Obamacare, so they must hate the ACA too! Instead, he got an outpouring of support — for Obamacare.

As people around the world pick out the perfect outfit to celebrate the end of 2013 and the potential of 2014, most of them still have little idea about where or how their wear was made. Even after the factory collapse at Rana Plaza killed 1,100 people in April — the deadliest disaster in garment industry history — some companies who had business with the Bangladeshi manufacturers refuse to accept blame or contribute to efforts for change. These facts are intertwined.

Nelson Mandela died peacefully Wednesday, leaving the world to both mourn and celebrate his life. Here are some clips and quotes from the great unifier of South Africa that highlight the vacuum he leaves behind.

A provision in the military spending bill for 2014 would require companies selling textile goods on military bases around the world to sign the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh. The good faith (but legally binding) measure aims to prevent another disaster like the Rana Plaza factory collapse from happening again. However, Sen. Bob Corker isn't too keen on the idea and wrote a letter this week asking for the language to be stripped from the spending bill.