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For those behind bars, letters are a 'lifeline'
Editor’s Note: Prison officials in Santa Clara County,CA citing security concerns, are set to impose a restrictive new policy July 1 that will limit written correspondences to and from inmates to small postcards. Opponents say the policy would hinder rehabilitation and unfairly punish those inmate.... |
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Lies, deception tanked Heritage report
The Heritage Foundation’s recently unveiled and long-awaited report on the Senate immigration proposal certainly brought the ultra-conservative think tank lots of attention. But it’s not the kind that’s likely to prove influential.
Republican leaders, including Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Sen.... |
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Heritages full range of outlandish beliefs
Last Friday, the Heritage Foundation announced that Jason Richwine, the co-author of their widely criticized immigration report, was no longer employed by the conservative think tank. Shortly after the immigration report was released, the Washington Post’s Dylan Matthews reported that Richwine’s P.... |
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Nestle CEO: ‘Water is not a human right’
Is water a free and basic human right, or should all the water on the planet belong to major corporations and be treated as a product? Should the poor who cannot afford to pay these said corporations suffer from starvation due to their lack of financial wealth? According to the former CEO and now .... |
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Memo to the xenophobe party
The xenophobia has already begun. Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky) in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on April 23rd urged him to reconsider immigration legislation because of the bombings in Boston. “The facts emerging in the Boston Marathon bombing have exposed a weakness in our current sy.... |
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We are better than this
Americans will remember Monday, April 15, 2013 as a day in which unspeakable violence took the lives of three people and wounded at least 153 after bombs exploded at the Boston Marathon finish line. Thousands of miles away, Iraqis will remember this same Monday as a day in which violence claimed t.... |
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Why today’s GOP will never win over minority voters
Nothing is more important to the future of American politics than the minority vote. Here’s a primer on what to expect from these voters for the rest of the decade.
One thing that’s certain about the future of the minority vote is its continued growth, which has averaged about half a percentage .... |
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Young and straight, but gay marriage is my issue too
I've never had any reason to think that I wouldn’t be able to someday marry the person I truly love. That's something that isn't true of many of my closest friends who are gay. So why should I care about the issue of marriage equality? After all, I’m not gay, and discrimination against gay people .... |
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The gay tax that strains my family’s finances
As the Supreme Court considers two cases that could lead to unprecedented rulings on the right to marriage equality, I’ve been paying close attention. For me, the national conversation about this civil right hits especially close to home because I’m the daughter of two strong and courageous women..... |
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Listen to the children
“My friends are dead. I saw the bad man. He was next to me when we ran out.”
“I played ball with him. Now he is dead.”
“My friend got killed cause she didn’t hide good enough.”
“Do you think it is my fault?”
These are some of the devastating voices of children from Sandy Hook Elementary Sc.... |
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The morality brigade
We’re still legislating and regulating private morality, while at the same time ignoring the much larger crisis of public morality in América.
In recent weeks Republican state legislators have decided to thwart the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in “Roe v. Wade,” which gave women the right to have.... |
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USNS César Chávez serves thousands at sea
Most of what is written on the late César E. Chávez, one of the nation’s most beloved humanitarians, is about his life’s work advocating on behalf of farm workers.
It’s noted that Chávez was drafted into the US Army at the age of 18 but he chose to serve with the US Navy through enlistment. He co.... |
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Thomas Pérez: Champion of working families
President Obama this week announced that he has chosen Thomas Pérez, the head of the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, to be the next Secretary of Labor. Speaking in the East Room of the White House, the President introduced Pérez, the son of Dominican immigrants and a lawyer who he.... |
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Chávez: Washington nemesis, Latin American hero
President Obama issued a brief statement that failed even to offer condolences, forcing a senior State Department official to patch over the evident callousness and breach of diplomacy by offering his personal condolences the following day.
Within moments of Chavez’s death, commercial media and .... |
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Organizing is the way to realize Gideon’s promise
Next week marks the 50th anniversary of one of the most significant Supreme Court decisions this country’s criminal justice system has ever known – Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), which guaranteed criminal defendants the right to a defense attorney regardless of their ability to pay.
Yet half a cent.... |
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