Public Education has become indoctrination and distraction "
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Sunday, March 31, 2013
Meet The Press: Same-sex marriage: A civil rights issue?
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Meet The Press: Same-sex marriage: A civil rights issue?: ""
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Confederate flag in North Carolina state building will come down - latimes.com
A Confederate flag that was briefly displayed inside the old North Carolina State Capitol building is coming down and will be moved along with an exhibit on the Civil War to another site.
The flag had been hanging for about a week before the Associated Press published a story about its display inside the building, which houses the governor’s offices.
In a statement provided by the governor's office, Susan Kluttz, the head of the state Cultural Resources office said the intent of the exhibit was to represent the Capitol the way it was in 1863.
State Historic Sites director Keith Hardison told the AP the battle flag should be seen in proper historical context. The president of the North Carolina NAACP, the Rev. William Barber, objected to that notion.
"He is right that it has a historical context," Barber told the AP. "But what is that history? The history of racism. The history of lynchings. The history of death. The history of slavery. If you say that shouldn't be offensive, then either you don't know the history, or you are denying the history."
Confederate flag in North Carolina state building will come down - latimes.com
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Google Street View explores Japan's Fukushima nuclear zone | Internet & Media - CNET News
Google Street View explores Japan's Fukushima nuclear zone | Internet & Media - CNET News: "The Web giant brings its team inside the nuclear no-go territory to photograph a desolate ghost town.
by Dara Kerr March 27, 2013 6:56 PM PDT (Credit: Google) Namie-machi was a small bustling city that used to sit near the Fukushima nuclear plant. But on March 11, 2011, that changed. After a massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami destroyed the town and the plant's infrastructure, causing hazardous waste to leak into the surrounding land, every single one of Namie-Machi's 21,000 residents had to abandon their homes."
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New Federal Scrutiny In Wake Of NPR Grain Bin Reports : The Two-Way : NPR
New Federal Scrutiny In Wake Of NPR Grain Bin Reports : The Two-Way : NPR: "Congress, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Justice Department are beginning to respond to the NPR-Center for Public Integrity Series on hundreds of persistent and preventable deaths in grain storage bins and weak enforcement by federal agencies.
Two federal officials familiar with the case say that the Justice Department is again considering criminal charges in the incident in Mt. Carroll, Illinois, in 2010, in which 14-year-old Wyatt Whitebread and 19-year-old Alex Pacas suffocated in thousands of bushels of corn. Will Piper, 20, survived but was unable to save his friends and co-workers. The owner of the grain bin, Haasbach LLC, was initially fined $555,000 but OSHA cut the fine 60 percent.
NPR/CPI obtained Labor Department documents that showed the Justice Department initially declined to file criminal charges in the case, despite multiple willful violations and what one former OSHA official called 'the worst of the worst' cases."
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NBCNews.com video: How to be a good ally
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NBCNews.com video: How to be a good ally: ""
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Nature’s Case for Same-Sex Marriage - NYTimes.com
"Stepping from the northern border of the Mall into the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, we come face-to-taxidermied-face with our great ape relatives. Before these apes were sequestered in museum cabinets, homosexual bonds were a natural part of their lives. This is especially true for our closest living cousins, the bonobos and chimpanzees."
Nature’s Case for Same-Sex Marriage - NYTimes.com
Nature’s Case for Same-Sex Marriage - NYTimes.com
Executive Order -- Establishment of the Presidential Commission of Election Administration | The White House
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to promote the efficient administration of Federal elections and to improve the experience of all voters, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Establishment. There is established the Presidential Commission on Election Administration (Commission).
Sec. 2. Membership. (a) The Commission shall be composed of not more than nine members appointed by the President. The members shall be drawn from among distinguished individuals with knowledge about or experience in the administration of State or local elections, as well as representatives of successful customer service-oriented businesses, and any other individuals with knowledge or experience determined by the President to be of value to the Commission.
(b) The President shall designate two members of the Commission to serve as Co-Chairs.
Sec. 3. Mission. (a) The Commission shall identify best practices and otherwise make recommendations to promote the efficient administration of elections in order to ensure that all eligible voters have the opportunity to cast their ballots without undue delay, and to improve the experience of voters facing other obstacles in casting their ballots, such as members of the military, overseas voters, voters with disabilities, and voters with limited English proficiency.
Executive Order -- Establishment of the Presidential Commission of Election Administration | The White House
Friday, March 29, 2013
What Difference Will Same-Sex Marriage Make? | The Nation
Protestors Alex Corona (C) and David Milligan (R), partners who say they wish to get married if the Defense of Marriage Act is overturned, rally in support of gay marriage in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, March 27, 2013. Reuters/Jonathan Ernst
In his essay “Message in the Stars,” the American Presbyterian writer and theologian Frederick Buechner conducts a thought experiment. What if God decided to prove—dramatically, irrefutably and publicly—that God does exist by writing across the night sky. Buechner imagines the heavenly author arranging the stars to read—GOD IS—and the subsequent hope, terror, regret, joy and utter astonishment that such a message would bring. He fantasizes that God would write the message in all the different languages of the world, so that on any given night one might go outside, look up and see, in French, Mandarin or Arabic: GOD IS.
He invites us to envision the sense of relief that would come with the utter certainty that God exists. Then he imagines this:
What Difference Will Same-Sex Marriage Make? | The Nation
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Book Review: Nate Silver’s “The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — But Some Don’t” | The Scholarly Kitchen
Book Review: Nate Silver’s “The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail — But Some Don’t” | The Scholarly Kitchen: "In the midst of a hyperactive media landscape even more super-heated by Presidential politics, I find myself turning to the excellent New York Times blog called FiveThirtyEight, which I also followed in its independent days back in 2008. Run by statistical whiz Nate Silver, the analyses on FiveThirtyEight are excellent, and the number crunching is superlative. In 2008, Silver was the first to detect John McCain’s demise in the polls, and called all but one race correctly, and that one was within the margin of error of even his highly tuned statistical models."
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Tension in Season for the United States and North Korea | Fair Observer°
Tension in Season for the United States and North Korea
The annual “Tension Season” in relations between the United States and North Korea is noticeably harsher this year.
Every year, there seems to be two periods of tension in the relationship between the United States and North Korea. These seasons of tension are nothing new. The historical pattern of bi-annual tensions are a result of confrontation spawning from joint military exercises by the US and its allies on the Korean Peninsula which coincide with two major North Korean public holidays, May Day and the Mass Games. May Day demonstrations celebrate the effort and sacrifices of the working class and are thus often proceeded by a major publicity stunt meant to honor that sacrifice, such as the launching of a satellite, last year, or Kim Jung Un's Basketball Diplomacy effort this year. The Mass Games are North Korea’s largest choreographed displays of culture meant for public pride, 0including a hundred thousand person strong feat of dance meant to stir the North Korean nationalist spirit and promote the juche ideology.
Every year, there seems to be two periods of tension in the relationship between the United States and North Korea. These seasons of tension are nothing new. The historical pattern of bi-annual tensions are a result of confrontation spawning from joint military exercises by the US and its allies on the Korean Peninsula which coincide with two major North Korean public holidays, May Day and the Mass Games. May Day demonstrations celebrate the effort and sacrifices of the working class and are thus often proceeded by a major publicity stunt meant to honor that sacrifice, such as the launching of a satellite, last year, or Kim Jung Un's Basketball Diplomacy effort this year. The Mass Games are North Korea’s largest choreographed displays of culture meant for public pride, 0including a hundred thousand person strong feat of dance meant to stir the North Korean nationalist spirit and promote the juche ideology.
Tension in Season for the United States and North Korea | Fair Observer°
Courting Cowardice on Same-Sex Marriage - NYTimes.com
As the arguments unfurled in Tuesday’s case on same-sex marriage, the Supreme Court justices sounded more and more cranky.
Things were moving too fast for them.
Courting Cowardice on Same-Sex Marriage - NYTimes.com
Newtown gunman Adam Lanza fired 155 bullets in less than five minutes, prosecutor says - Open Channel
Newtown gunman Adam Lanza fired 155 bullets in less than five minutes, prosecutor says - Open Channel: "By Michael Isikoff, Tom Winter and Erin McClam, NBC News Adam Lanza fired 155 bullets in less than five minutes on the day he killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the chief prosecutor investigating the massacre said Thursday. The total included 154 fired from a Bushmaster .223-model rifle and a final bullet, fired from a Glock 10mm handgun, that Lanza used to take his own life, said Stephen Sedensky, the chief prosecutor investigating the shooting. Three Samurai swords were recovered from the Newtown, Conn., home that Lanza shared with his mother, authorities said as they released search warrants from the second-worst school shooting in American history."
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Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Hardball: DOMA challenged at the Supreme Court
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Hardball: DOMA challenged at the Supreme Court: ""
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Justices signal they might strike down federal marriage law - NBC Politics
Justices signal they might strike down federal marriage law - NBC Politics: "Hearing a challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act, which allows federal benefits to go only to heterosexual married couples, the Supreme Court appeared skeptical of the statute and indicated that it might strike down a section of the 1996 law. At issue in Wednesday’s oral argument was the Defense of Marriage Act, known as DOMA, passed by overwhelming margins in both houses of Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton."
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Justices to Hear Arguments on Defense of Marriage Act - NYTimes.com
Justices to Hear Arguments on Defense of Marriage Act - NYTimes.com: "WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court returns to the subject of same-sex marriage for a second day on Wednesday, when the justices hear arguments about the constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act of 1996."
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Rachel Maddow: Calif. AG: ‘We should not wait when people are being deprived of their fundamental rights’
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Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Is the Meaning of Your Life to Make Babies? | Guest Blog, Scientific American Blog Network
From an evolutionary gene’s-eye perspective, the genes are immortal, and our role, the meaning of life, is to perpetuate the genes. In a few centuries, all traces of our existence as human individuals — memories of us, all our accomplishments –will likely be gone and forgotten, except for genes that survive from those of us who successfully reproduced through the generations.
But, of course, we don’t experience the world from a gene’s eye evolutionary perspective. One experiences the world as an individual person, not as a gene dispenser (fun as that may be). The joy we get from parenting comes not from some abstract generic idea of gene propagation, but from specific love and interaction with our own children — making your own baby son giggle uncontrollably when you make ridiculous animal noises, the bittersweet emotional rush you feel as you watch your daughter walk down the aisle. We care about ourselves and others as persons, not as a gene menagerie. Humans create our own meanings.
Is the Meaning of Your Life to Make Babies? | Guest Blog, Scientific American Blog Network
Chris Hayes on what he really thinks about the assault weapons ban — MSNBC
Chris Hayes, host of MSNBC’s new 8pm weeknight program, weighed in on assault weapons ban being dropped from the baseline gun control bill this week on Capitol Hill in an interview with Alex Witt Sunday.
“There continues to be a profound asymmetry in American politics on the issue of guns, in which on one side people who want to have an unfettered direct relationship with guns that is not regulated or mediated by the government. Those people care desperately and deeply about that issue. There are a lot of them, and they really care. And on the other side of the issue, people who want to see gun safety measures, there are a lot of them but it’s a very diffuse opinion.”
Hayes said it’s a classic example of preference versus intensity.
Chris Hayes on what he really thinks about the assault weapons ban — MSNBC
We Are Still Radically Overcharged for Health Care | FDL Action
The International Federation of Health Plans is out with their new comparative price report for 2012 and it again shows the United States radically overpays for basically every health care service relative to any other first-world country. From the report:
We Are Still Radically Overcharged for Health Care | FDL Action
In Landmark Case, Justices Debate Gay Marriage - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON — As the Supreme Court on Tuesday weighed the very meaning of marriage, several justices seemed to have developed a case of buyer’s remorse. Some wondered aloud if the court had moved too fast to address whether gay and lesbian couples have a constitutional right to marry.
“I just wonder if this case was properly granted,” said Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who probably holds the decisive vote.
In Landmark Case, Justices Debate Gay Marriage - NYTimes.com
Prop 8 defenders have gender anxiety - Salon.com
"Cooper also wilted under Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s questioning of whether it would be justifiable to discriminate against gay people in a non-marriage context. He said it wouldn’t. “I don’t quite understand it,” Sotomayor said, having cornered him. “If you’re not dealing with this as a class question, then why would you say that the Government is not free to discriminate against them?” In other words, Cooper has to justify why marriage is different, and his answer is because marriage is supposed to be for babies. (Or as he inauspiciously put it to Sotomayor,” Your Honor, that’s the essential thrust of our — our position, yes.”) In the absence of childbearing, Cooper said, society would “refocus the purpose of marriage and the definition of marriage away from the raising of children and to the emotional needs and desires of adults, of adult couples.” This was viewed as self-evidently terrible."
Prop 8 defenders have gender anxiety - Salon.com
Prop 8 defenders have gender anxiety - Salon.com
MSNBC shakes up primetime schedule | Media Life Magazine
MSNBC shakes up primetime schedule | Media Life Magazine: "MSNBC is moving ‘The Ed Show’ to weekends and bringing in Chris Hayes to take over the 8 p.m. slot, the latest primetime shakeup on the channel following Keith Olbermann’s exit two years ago.
Hayes has been hosting a weekend morning program on MSNBC called ‘Up With Chris Hayes’ for the past year.
He takes over a slot that belonged first to Lawrence O’Donnell and then to Ed Schultz following Olbermann’s stormy departure in 2011.
‘Ed’ will end its run Thursday, and Hayes’ as-yet-unnamed program will debut April 1.
‘Ed’ has been averaging just over 1 million total viewers in the timeslot, including 249,000 in the key news demographic of adults 25-54, according to Nielsen.
That’s well behind what cable news leader ‘The O’Reilly Factor’ averages on Fox News Channel in the same timeslot. And it’s also fewer than the 339,000 in the demo that MSNBC’s top primetime program, the 9 p.m. ‘The Rachel Maddow Show,’ commands.
Schultz announced his move to weekends last night during his show. Starting in April, ‘Ed’ will expand to two hours from 5 to 7 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday,"
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Modern Love - A Father, a Son and a Fighting Chance - NYTimes.com
Modern Love - A Father, a Son and a Fighting Chance - NYTimes.com: "WHEN my son Jeff was little, he was a pain in the neck about eating. On one drive to Huntsville, Ala., he sobbed for 70 minutes (I know because I timed it) about how we were starving him to death."
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How Opinion on Same-Sex Marriage Is Changing, and What It Means - NYTimes.com
How Opinion on Same-Sex Marriage Is Changing, and What It Means - NYTimes.com: "The Supreme Court will hear arguments this week on two cases related to same-sex marriage, the first involving a California referendum that barred gay marriage, the other involving a federal law that prevents the government from recognizing same-sex unions. A variety of outcomes are possible, but it seems prudent to take stock of public opinion on same-sex marriage before the decisions come down.
Support for same-sex marriage is increasing — but is it doing so at a faster rate than in the past? Is it now safe to say that a majority approves it? How much of the shift is because people are changing their minds, as opposed to generational turnover? Is there still a gap between how well same-sex marriage performs in the polls and at the ballot booth? How many states would approve same-sex marriage today, and how many might do so by 2016?
"
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Africa’s Voice, Nigeria’s Conscience - NYTimes.com - A great writer who had an impact on me at an impressionable age.
Africa’s Voice, Nigeria’s Conscience - NYTimes.com: "I GREW up under my grandfather’s ancient pear tree in the Nigerian village of Uwessan. The tree’s roots were massive and its leaves shielded us from hot tropical sun while we played soccer. Elders also used it as shade while drinking palm wine and telling hunting tales in the evening. We sometimes climbed a low branch to set wire-traps and catch birds. When a dead branch broke off, it became firewood. Most important, the tree was a major cash crop for my grandfather, who sold its fruits to traders from far away.
"
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Monday, March 25, 2013
Michele Bachmann Presidential Campaign Under Ethics Investigation: Report
Rep. Michele Bachmann's (R-Minn.) presidential campaign is under investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics for campaign finance violations, theDaily Beast reported Monday.
Bachmann unsuccessfully ran for the Republican nomination during the 2012 presidential campaign cycle. According to the Daily Beast report, federal investigators are interviewing former staffers across the country about alleged campaign finance improprieties:
Michele Bachmann Presidential Campaign Under Ethics Investigation: Report
Off the Charts Blog | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities | Two-Thirds of Ryan’s Cuts Would Come from Low- and Moderate-Income Programs
At least 66 percent of the cuts in House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s new budget would come from programs that serve people of limited means, our new analysisfinds. That violates a core principle of the Simpson-Bowles fiscal commission, which the commission co-chairs reiterated in the revised plan they issued a few weeks ago: that deficit reduction should not increase poverty or widen inequality.
Off the Charts Blog | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities | Two-Thirds of Ryan’s Cuts Would Come from Low- and Moderate-Income Programs
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Militant atheism has become a religion - Salon.com
It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.
— Jonathan Swift
One quiet Sunday morning, I stroll down the driveway of my home in Stone Mountain, Georgia, to pick up the newspaper. As I arrive at the bottom—we live on a hill—a Cadillac drives up the street and stops right before me. A big man in a suit steps out, sticking out his hand. A firm handshake follows, during which I hear him proclaim in a booming, almost happy voice, “I’m looking for lost souls!” Apart from perhaps being overly trusting, I am rather slow and had no idea what he was talking about. I turned around to look behind me, thinking that perhaps he had lost his dog, then corrected myself and mumbled something like, “I’m not very religious.
Militant atheism has become a religion - Salon.com: ""
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Hitchens's attitude really turns me off even though he is an extremely bright man and raises some serious questions regarding religious faith and belief systems.
John H. Armwood
Up w/ Chris Hayes: Chris Hayes says farewell to UP
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Up w/ Chris Hayes: Chris Hayes says farewell to UP: ""
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Up w/ Chris Hayes: Stop-and-frisk in the NYC race for mayor
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Up w/ Chris Hayes: Stop-and-frisk in the NYC race for mayor: ""
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Pity Earth’s Creatures - NYTimes.com
AESOP, the fabulist and slave who, like Scheherazade, may have won his freedom by the magic of his tongue and who supposedly shared the Greek island of Samos with Pythagoras 2,500 years ago, nailed down our fellowship with other beasties of the animal kingdom. Yet we seem to have reached an apogee of separation since then. The problem is, we find ourselves quite ungovernable when operating solo, shredding our habitat, while hugging our dogs and cats as if for consolation and dieting on whole-food calories if we are affluent enough. Google Earth and genome games also lend us a fitful confidence that everything is under control. We have Facebook, GPS apps, cameras on any corner, week-ahead weather forecasts round-the-clock on-screen, repair crews ready to restore “power” if it ever flickers out.
Pity Earth’s Creatures - NYTimes.com
Why Israel and Turkey Got Back Together | Foreign Affairs
After nearly three years of intense political feuding following the Israeli raid on the Mavi Marmara -- a ship carrying international activists who were trying to break Israel’s blockade on Gaza -- Turkey and Israel agreed yesterday to resume diplomatic ties. In a phone call with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized for the deaths of nine Turkish citizens at the hands of Israeli forces and agreed to pay compensation. In return, Erdogan agreed to normalize relations between the two countries and to drop the prosecutions of Israeli officers in connection with the flotilla raid. Turkey had previously demanded that, in addition to apologizing and paying compensation, Israel lift the blockade. In order to get around this last -- and thorniest -- condition, Netanyahu stressed that Israel has recently eased restrictions on civilian goods coming into Gaza, and he agreed to work with Turkey on improving the humanitarian situation there. The details of the arrangement still need to be worked out, but it a
Why Israel and Turkey Got Back Together | Foreign Affairs
Why Israel and Turkey Got Back Together | Foreign Affairs
Climate Change Could Mean Seven Times As Many Katrinas | Mother Jones
Batten down the hatches, East Coasters: A new study argues that for every one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees F) of global warming, the US Atlantic seaboard could see up to seven times as many Katrina-sized hurricanes.
That's the conclusion of Aslak Grinsted, a climatologist at Copenhagen's Niels Bohr Institute, who led an effort to match East Coast storm surge records from the last 90 years with global temperatures. His results, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggest that the strongest hurricanes are likely to become more commonplace with only half the level of warming currently projected by scientists.
Climate Change Could Mean Seven Times As Many Katrinas | Mother Jones
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Obama Reveals a Knack for Middle East Mediation - NYTimes.com
AMMAN, Jordan — There is little doubt thatPresident Obama can deliver a memorable speech, as he did in Jerusalem last week about the need for peace. The big surprise on his trip to Israel and Jordan, which ended here on Saturday, is that he can also twist arms.
Obama Reveals a Knack for Middle East Mediation - NYTimes.com
Obama Reveals a Knack for Middle East Mediation - NYTimes.com
Chinua Achebe And The Bravery Of Lions : The Two-Way : NPR
Chinua Achebe And The Bravery Of Lions : The Two-Way : NPR: "Chinua Achebe, the prominent Nigerian novelist and essayist who died on Thursday, said in a 1994 interview with the Paris Review, 'There is that great proverb — that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.'
Achebe's books are elegant, musical, and — most significantly — they'll live on as African rebuttals to the colonial narratives of Joseph Conrad and other European writers.
Achebe's influence is most visible in the extraordinary output of a handful of prominent young Nigerian writers and other African literary elite. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a MacArthur Fellow and perhaps the most famous young Nigerian writer, said in a 2009 Ted talk that '[B]ecause of writers like Chinua Achebe and Camara Laye...I realized that people like me, girls with skin the color of chocolate, whose kinky hair could not form ponytails, could also exist in literature.'"
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The GOP Wants to Use This Bizarre Case to Scuttle Obama's Most Progressive Cabinet Nominee | Mother Jones
Republicans are expected to fiercely oppose President Barack Obama's nomination of Thomas Perez, the assistant attorney general for civil rights and one of the more prominent progressives in his administration, to head the Labor Department. Already, Perez's GOP foes have accused him of corruption concerning a deal he helped forge in the Justice Department. This agreement prevented an unusual Minnesota housing discrimination case from going to the Supreme Court, and the full backstory—which Perez's critics haven't acknowledged—is a bizarre tale of legal complexities in which landlords tried to use a major civil rights law to protect themselves from city regulations meant to improve living conditions for low-income residents.
The GOP Wants to Use This Bizarre Case to Scuttle Obama's Most Progressive Cabinet Nominee | Mother Jones
Friday, March 22, 2013
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