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Torii Hunter Regrets — But Doesn’t Apologize For — Calling Black Latino Baseball Players ‘Impostors’ - 03/11/2010 08:47 PM

The Associated Press reports that Los Angeles Angels center fielder Torii Hunter “insists he meant no harm toward Latino players when he referred to them as ‘impostors.’” Hunter’s controversial remarks were made two weeks ago during a series of USA Today roundtables about baseball: People see dark faces out there, and the perception is that [...]

Mississippi school district cancels prom after same-sex couple planned to attend. - 03/11/2010 08:00 PM

A Mississippi school district has canceled this year’s prom at Itawamba Agricultural High School after the Mississippi ACLU urged school officials to allow a lesbian couple to attend. Administrators turned down requests from 18-year-old Constance McMillen and her girlfriend, another student at the school, who planned on wearing a tuxedo. The school cited “distractions to [...]

Texas Education Agency Slams Fox News’s Fearmongering About The State’s Social Studies Curriculum Changes - 03/11/2010 07:09 PM

One of the right’s most often used scaremongering tactics is to warn of “liberal indoctrination” and to claim progressives are using schools to push their own agenda. Fox News has been fanning the flames of this conspiracy theory in recent weeks with paranoid reporting about the Texas State Board of Education’s deliberations over how to [...]

Tiger Woods hires Ari Fleischer. - 03/11/2010 06:22 PM

The New York Post reports that golfer Tiger Woods has hired former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer to help repair his public image: Two sources in the golf community have told The Post that Ari Fleischer, the former presidential advisor to George W. Bush and the man who was brought in to help repair [...]

NJ Superior Court Judge Reprimanded For Mocking One Defendant’s English, Comparing Another To O.J. Simpson - 03/11/2010 05:31 PM

The Associated Press reports that the New Jersey Supreme Court has chastised Superior Court Judge James N. Citta, who “belittled an immigrant defendant’s poor English skills and compared another defendant to O.J Simpson.” Citta demeaned a Mexican immigrant who, after pleading guilty to violating his parole, explained that he failed to follow its [...]

170 House Republicans rebuff Steele by voting to ban RNC’s ‘Census’ mailer. - 03/11/2010 04:43 PM

Under Chairman Michael Steele, the Republican National Committee has been using controversial mailers posing as official Census documents to raise money. “Calling itself the ‘Congressional District Census,’ the letter comes in an envelope starkly printed with the words, ‘DO NOT DESTROY OFFICIAL DOCUMENT’ and describes itself, on the outside of the envelope, as a [...]

TurboTax drops Glenn Beck, whose show has gone without ads for more than a month in the UK. - 03/11/2010 03:50 PM

Yesterday, StopBeck.com announced that TurboTax has become the 120th advertiser to drop Fox News host Glenn Beck. In an announcement on Twitter, TurboTax stated: Thanks everyone for your feedback, & for reminding us of what we value. We’ve pulled advertising from the Glenn Beck show. TurboTax’s decision to pull out of Beck’s show came just two [...]

ThinkFast: March 11, 2010 - 03/11/2010 03:00 PM

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) issued a new directive yesterday distancing himself from Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s effort to strip protections for LGBT students from all state colleges and university non-discrimination policies. McDonnell initially supported Cuccinelli’s legal reasoning, but he subsequently received significant criticism from college students and faculty members. McDonnell’s directive does not have [...]

CNN’s Crowley Suggests Democrats Debated Afghanistan Exit Strategy To ‘Make The Massa Story Go Away’ - 03/11/2010 01:15 AM

Today, the House of Representatives is debating H. Con Res. 248, a privileged resolution brought to the floor by Reps. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Walter Jones (R-NC), and others that required Congress to debate whether or not to continue the war in Afghanistan. During one point in the debate, Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) delivered an impassioned [...]

Six Democrats Side With Banks, Ask For ‘Alternative’ To Landmark Student Lending Reform - 03/11/2010 12:00 AM

One of the greatest hardships facing America’s college students is student debt; the average student in the class of 2008 graduated with $23,000 of debt, “a figure 25 percent higher than what their older brothers and sisters owed when they graduated from college in 2004.” To tackle this student debt crisis, last year the House [...]

Ignoring His Own Votes, Bond Claims Reconciliation ‘Cannot’ Be Used For ‘Major’ Legislation - 03/10/2010 11:01 PM

Repeating conservative lies about reconciliation, Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell today that reconciliation for health care reform “procedurally cannot be done.” Claiming it was never used for major legislation without “overwhelming bipartisan support,” Bond predicted the Senate will ultimately not be able to pass the health care bill through the reconciliation process: BOND: [...]

Health Insurance Lobby Leaves The Door Open To Supporting A GOP Repeal Of Health Reform - 03/10/2010 10:10 PM

America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the lobbying juggernaut for the health insurance industry, hosted its annual conference at the Ritz Carlton this week. As a vote on health legislation nears, the industry announced yesterday that it is funding a new round of national ads aimed at killing reform. The insurance industry has attacked every version [...]

Even Though Bush Used False WMD Claims To Justify Iraq War, Rove Claims They Dealt With ‘Reality’ - 03/10/2010 09:20 PM

In his book that was released this week, former top Bush aide Karl Rove claimed that President Bush would not have authorized an invasion of Iraq in 2003 if he had known Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction. “Would the Iraq War have occurred without W.M.D.? I doubt it,” Rove writes. “The [...]

Limbaugh Now Says He Won’t Move To Costa Rica — Will Just Go There To Use Its Public Health System - 03/10/2010 08:23 PM

On Monday, hate radio host Rush Limbaugh pledged to leave the country and go to Costa Rica if Congress successfully passes and implements its health care legislation. Yesterday, Limbaugh claimed that he never said he’d leave the country. The host explained that what he meant was that he would go to Costa Rica to [...]

American Petroleum Institute Uses Stock Photos Of ‘Americans’ To Defend Oil Subsidies - 03/10/2010 07:24 PM

Big Oil is using fake “Americans” to defend billions in tax subsidies. The American Petroleum Institute is running full-page ads in Politico and Roll Call that attack Congress for “new energy taxes”: Congress will likely consider new taxes on America’s oil and natural gas industry. These new energy taxes will produce wide-reaching effects, and ripple through [...]

Archdiocese responds to controversy over its decision to kick children with lesbian parents out of school. - 03/10/2010 06:33 PM

Last week, officials “at Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic School, acting at the direction of the Archdiocese of Denver,” decided to not re-enroll two unnamed children because their parents were lesbians. Following fierce protests of the decision, the Archbishop of Denver has written an op-ed where he says the Church “does not claim” that [...]

‘Jihad Jane’ Undermines Right-Wing Calls For Profiling Based On The Myth That All Terrorists ‘Look Alike’ - 03/10/2010 05:33 PM

Since the Ft. Hood shooting and the failed Christmas Day terror attack, some on the right have stepped up their calls for ethnic “profiling” and “discrimination,” with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich saying the Obama administration is more interested in “protecting the rights of terrorists” than “protecting the lives of Americans.” Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s [...]

Netanyahu Apologizes For Settlements News, Despite Recently Appearing With Pro-Settlement Cleric Hagee - 03/10/2010 04:41 PM

On Monday, the day Vice-President Joe Biden was to arrive in Israel, the Israeli government announced approval for 112 new homes in Beitar Illit, an ultra-Orthodox settlement near Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, despite having agreed in November to curb settlement growth in partial fulfillment of Israel’s obligations under the Bush administration road [...]

Mukasey calls Liz Cheney’s ‘Al-Qaeda 7′ ad ‘shoddy and dangerous.’ - 03/10/2010 03:51 PM

Yesterday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) joined a growing chorus of conservatives condemning the McCarthy-like tactics of Keep America Safe, the new group led by Bill Kristol and Liz Cheney, which recently released an ad questioning the loyalties of Justice Department lawyers who were once involved in representing al-Qaeda terror suspects. Today in the Wall Street [...]

ThinkFast: March 10, 2010 - 03/10/2010 03:00 PM

Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), who is a playing “a crucial role in bipartisan negotiations over financial regulation,” pushed to “remove a provision from draft legislation that would have empowered federal authorities to crack down on payday lenders. … The industry is politically influential in his home state and a significant contributor to his campaigns, records [...]