May
20
2013
Despite the 37 bills to repeal it and the scores of lawsuits filed against it, Obamacare, a.k.a. the Affordable Care Act, is going to be in full swing soon. But the historic health insurance reform law is going to face many more bumps in the road as it is rolled out. One corner of Obamacare that hasn’t gotten much attention is the fact that it will not require employers to cover spouses, which experts say …
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May
20
2013
“We don’t want a country where abortion is simply outlawed. We want a country where it isn’t even considered,” said Representative Paul Ryan in a speech a few weeks ago.
It’s not as far off as you think. In just the past several weeks, the Kansas legislature passed a sweeping new bill that says life begins at conception. This follows on the heels of North Dakota’s ban on abortions after a fetal heartbeat is found …
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May
20
2013
VATICAN CITY, May 18 (Reuters) – Pope Francis shared personal moments with 200,000 people on Saturday, telling them he sometimes nods off while praying at the end of a long day and that it “breaks my heart” that the death of a homeless person is not news.
Francis, who has made straight talk and simplicity a hallmark of his papacy, made his unscripted comments in answers to questions by four people at a huge international gathering …
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May
20
2013
A few months ago, I wrote about how my partner and I were called “disgusting” by a man on the street as we shared a quick goodbye kiss in the middle of the afternoon in the very gay Manhattan neighborhood of Chelsea. That has turned out to be less an aberration than a symptom of far more horrific things to come. We’ve seen reports of violent attack after violent attack in New York against gays …
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May
20
2013
Congratulations, Minnesota. Nearly three years after Anoka High School student Justin Aaberg hanged himself after allegedly being subjected to anti-gay harassment, state Republicans seem to have decided that bullying is no longer a problem. The Pioneer-Press reports Monday that an anti-bullying bill has been withdrawn “after Republicans said they planned 10 hours of debate on the issue.”
Using mean, aggressive measures to get your way over a bullying bill? Anyone else feel an Alanis Morissette verse …
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May
20
2013
Chicago is braced for a critical vote by the Board of Education this week to determine if 54 schools will be closed.
Last week, parents of three children, two who have disabilities and a third who is black, filed a lawsuit at the US District Court in Chicago alleging the school closings violate the Americans With Disabilities Act and the Illinois Civil Rights Act.
A second complaint, filed by the parents of three more children with disabilities, …
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May
20
2013
Last fall, Alex Gibney, a documentary filmmaker who won an Academy Award in 2008 for an exposé of torture at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan, completed a film called “Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream.” It was scheduled to air on PBS on November 12th. The movie had been produced independently, in part with support from the Gates Foundation. “Park Avenue” is a pointed exploration of the growing economic inequality in America …
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May
20
2013
Two cases of racially charged graffiti at a high school in upscale Agoura Hills are being investigated by a hate crime unit, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department officials said.
Deputies were reviewing surveillance footage and providing extra patrols on Thursday around Agoura High School, where officials found racist graffiti against black students on Sunday and Wednesday.
The scrawls were first discovered on Sunday on at least 10 buildings on the campus, which has 31 African-American students among …
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May
20
2013
Karl Rove is offering America a super-sized serving of political cynicism.
Since the controversy over the targeting of grassroots tea party groups for extra scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service arose, Rove has engaged in the sort of political sleight of hand that could only be practiced in a country where elite media have no skepticism—and no memory.
Just a few months ago, after the 2012 election, Rove was widely portrayed as having declared war on grassroots …
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May
20
2013
When two Swedish economists set out to examine whether economic freedom made people any more or less racist, they knew how they would gauge economic freedom, but they needed to find a way to measure a country’s level of racial tolerance. So they turned to something called the World Values Survey, which has been measuring global attitudes and opinions for decades.
Among the dozens of questions that World Values asks, the Swedish economists found one that, …
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