Friday Flotsam

... a miscellany of items that washed up in the course of the week.

First, a couple from TPM:

• Study: Lawmakers Assume Voters Are Way More Conservative Than They Are — is newswriter Brendan James saying they're not?
• Rick Perry On Texas Takeover: If I Were President, Attitudes Would Change — mine among them, and not for the better.

Next, several from Firedoglake:

• For 7 Years, FBI Defied Law for Seeking a Person’s Records Under Patriot Act — it seems the FIBbers, ah, FBIers, haven't changed since J. Edgar's day.
• Podcast: CIA Whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling & the Government’s Campaign to Silence Him — count our President among those who do NOT believe that leaks by government officials to reporters are a valuable part of the mechanism by which American citizens are informed of their government's doings... Prez O. would rather use the Espionage Act to throw such officials in jail.
• Chicago Public Schools’ Ban of ‘Persepolis’ Continues to Face Challenge from Anti-Censorship Alliance — censorship is virtually never appropriate in a democracy, and even school board influence on selection of "age-appropriate" reading matter must be handled with extreme care. OOPS, this article is over two years old...
• Feinstein, McCain Want US Troops Deployed in Yemen — gawd a'mighty, don't we have enough wars on our hands already? Maybe what we have is a couple of senators who are past retirement age... OOPS again, this article was published in January; I fear FDL is having some problems with their recently republished site.

If something else of interest turns up today on one of those sites, I may append it here.