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via Chad Livengood, Detroit News House Republicans tried to silence two female Democratic lawmakers Thursday for floor outbursts a day earlier referencing male sterilization and a female sex organ. The majority party prohibited state Rep. Lisa Brown from speaking on the floor Thursday after she ended a speech the day before against a bill restricting … Continue reading
via David G. Savage and Melanie Mason, L.A. Times When the Supreme Court ruled that corporations had the right to political free speech, it set loose a tidal wave of campaign money that helped elect a new Congress in 2010 and is now reshaping the presidential race. But the impact of the Citizens United decision … Continue reading
via, The AP, Fox News A high-profile member of the Boy Scouts of America’s governing board says he doesn’t support the Scouts’ policy of excluding gays and will work from within to seek a change. Ernst & Young CEO James Turley, whose accounting firm has welcomed gays and lesbians in its own work force, becomes … Continue reading
via Noreen Ahmed-Ullah and Joel Hood, Chicago Tribune The Chicago Teachers Union says nearly 90 percent of its members have voted to authorize a strike, far more than the required 75 percent. At a news conference announcing results of the vote, CTU President Karen Lewis said they show how the relationship between the Chicago Board … Continue reading
via Len Lazarick, The Chestertown Spy The right and the left agree on a few things about current trends in voting laws: democracy is being threatened by a desire to win elections and wield power. But at panels a mile apart this weekend, the two sides presented very different views of the state of election … Continue reading
via Mary Bruce, ABC News In his first public reaction to the Wisconsin recall election that saved Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s job, President Obama said today that he “would have loved to have seen a different result,” but was adamant that the election does not have broader implications for November. “You have specific circumstances in … Continue reading
via Don Lee, Chicago Tribune The Great Recession took such a heavy toll on the economy that the typical American family lost nearly 40% of its wealth from 2007 to 2010, shaving the median net worth to a level not seen since the early 1990s. The Federal Reserve said in a new report Monday that median family net … Continue reading
via David Brooks, The New York Times In the 1970s, the gift shop at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was an informal affair. It was staffed by about 300 mostly elderly volunteers, and there were cash drawers instead of registers. The problem was that of the shop’s $400,000 in annual revenue, somebody was … Continue reading
via Laura Bassett, The Huffington Post A massive, 60-page omnibus bill that drastically limits abortion access and could shut down all abortion clinics in the state is being rushed through the Michigan State House of Representatives on Thursday. The bill was introduced just last week, but lawmakers held a hearing for it on Thursday morning … Continue reading
via Jessica Hopper, NBC Rock Center When Helen and Jay Stassen’s 21-year-old son, Benjamin, committed suicide 19 months ago, he did not leave a note. If it had been 20 years ago, the Stassens might have looked through diaries, letters or other personal items in an attempt to find clues as to why he decided … Continue reading
via E.J. Dionne, Jr., The Washington Post The left will make a big mistake if it ignores the lessons of the failed recall in Wisconsin of Gov. Scott Walker (R). The right will make an even bigger error if it allows the Wisconsin results to feed its inclination toward winner-take-all politics. The danger on the … Continue reading
via Douglas Belkin and Caroline Porter, The Wall Street Journal Wisconsin voters headed to the polls Tuesday to decide whether to recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker in a bitter dispute over his efforts to curb unions that could affect the presidential race and influence policy toward organized labor nationwide. More than $60 million has flooded … Continue reading
via Jennifer Bendery, The Huffington Post President Barack Obama on Monday dropped in on a White House press call to urge the Senate to pass legislation that ensures women are paid the same amount as their male counterparts. “Tomorrow, Congress is going to have a chance to vote on the Paycheck Fairness Act,” Obama said … Continue reading
via David Ignatius, The Washington Post As an intelligence operation, it must have seemed like pure genius: Recruit a Pakistani doctor to collect blood samples that could identify Osama bin Laden’s family, under cover of an ongoing vaccination program. But as an ethical matter, it was something else. The CIA’s vaccination gambit put at risk … Continue reading
via MSNBC A federal appeals court has ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act, a law that denies a host of federal benefits to same-sex married couples, is unconstitutional. The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston ruled Thursday that the act known as DoMA, which defines marriage as a union between a man … Continue reading
via Sophia Tareen, The Huffington Post More than two dozen gay and lesbian couples filed lawsuits Wednesday arguing that it’s unconstitutional for Illinois to deny them the right to marry, a move advocates hope will lead to legalized same-sex marriage in the state. The two lawsuits – backed by the American Civil Liberties Union of … Continue reading
via Jonathan Benson, Natural News The vast majority of so-called scientific studies focused on cancer research are inaccurate and potentially fraudulent, suggests a new review published in the journal Nature. A shocking 88 percent of 53 “landmark” studies on cancer that have been published in reputable journals over the years cannot be reproduced, according to … Continue reading
via Dana Milbank, The Washington Post The time has come for Mitt Romney to prove it once and for all: Is he or is he not a unicorn? Let me stipulate that I have no proof that Romney is a unicorn, and indeed I want to believe that he is not. But I have not … Continue reading
via Dan Costa, PC Mag There have been a number of theories explaining Facebook’s lackluster IPO performance. Perhaps it’s the social network’s dependence on advertising or just a general sense that no company can live up to the colossal hype generated by Facebook. Personally, I see Facebook’s mobile offerings as its primary weakness. The world … Continue reading
via Tim Padgett, Time Drug thugs dumped 49 bloodied and dismembered corpses on a northern Mexican highway on Sunday, May 13. We journalists are finding little new to say, few fresh insights to offer, about these all too frequent narco-massacres in Mexico and the 50,000 people murdered so far in the country’s endless drug war. … Continue reading
via Suzanne Goldberg, The Guardian The ultra-conservative Heartland Institute admitted it was in financial crisis on Wednesday, with the flight of corporate donors making it difficult to pay staff or cover the costs of its annual conference aimed at debunking climate science. In a speech at the close of this year’s climate conference, Heartland’s president, … Continue reading
via David Brooks, The New York Times As a young man, Peter Thiel competed to get into Stanford. Then he competed to get into Stanford Law School. Then he competed to become a clerk for a federal judge. Thiel won all those competitions. But then he competed to get a Supreme Court clerkship. Thiel lost … Continue reading
via Paul Blumenthal, The Huffington Post The push to raise unlimited contributions by a super PAC backing President Barack Obama’s reelection has run into a number of hurdles since Priorities USA Action was set up by former White House aide Bill Burton in 2011. Major Democratic donors have shunned the group, denying it funds to … Continue reading
via Guy Adams, The Independent Declaring that “life must always be protected”, a senior Vatican cleric has defended the Catholic Church’s decision to excommunicate the mother and doctors of a nine-year-old rape victim who had a life-saving abortion in Brazil. Cardinal Giovanni Batista Re, who heads the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, told reporters that … Continue reading
via W.J. Hennigan, L.A. Times In a pivotal moment for private spaceflight, a towering white rocket lifted a cone-shaped capsule into space early Tuesday on a mission to the International Space Station. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket carried the unmanned Dragon capsule into space after a 3:44 a.m. EDT launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla., marking the … Continue reading
The Brandt Standard 