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By Chris Abani
By Hannah Arendt
$22
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 AP/Carolyn Kasterjavascript:void(0);
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Sen. Angus King was the lone voice of sanity at a hearing where Pentagon officials said the war on terror could last up to 20 more years—or however long the president deems fit.
Posted on May 18, 2013
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“Illegal” describes an action, not a person, says The Associated Press; Vice President Joe Biden claims television shows like “Will & Grace” helped change the American public’s attitude toward gay marriage; meanwhile, Kansas legislators are close to passing a law that would quarantine people with HIV. These discoveries and more after the jump.
Posted on Apr 4, 2013
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 Flickr/stgermh
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Ignoring the whole separation of church and state thing, a group of Republican legislators in North Carolina want to trample on your religious freedoms.
Posted on Apr 3, 2013
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 Flickr/KOMUnews
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A pro-gun Missouri Republican has introduced legislation that would make it a felony for state lawmakers to so much as propose firearm safety regulations.
Posted on Feb 19, 2013
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By Robert Reich — Exactly a century ago, on Feb. 3, 1913, the 16th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, authorizing a federal income tax. Congress turned it into a graduated tax, based on “capacity to pay.” It was among the signal victories of the progressive movement.
Posted on Feb 3, 2013
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A look at the day’s political happenings, including sore loser Rick Santorum’s tough talk for the president and why the Republicans’ debt ceiling proposal may be a constitutional fail.
Posted on Jan 20, 2013
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A look at the day’s political happenings, including Mark Sanford’s attempt to resurrect his political career and Stephen Colbert grills Piers Morgan about the U.S. Constitution.
Posted on Jan 15, 2013
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A look at the day’s political happenings, including the company that would rather pay a daily $1.3 million fine than fund contraceptive coverage and a news magazine’s accidental posting of an obituary of an ex-president who is still alive.
Posted on Dec 30, 2012
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 Wikimedia Commons/Scrumshus
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“The federal government experimented with indefinite detention of United States citizens during World War II, a mistake we now recognize as a betrayal of our core values,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Wednesday as she introduced an amendment to end the provision. “Let’s not repeat it.”
Posted on Nov 29, 2012
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 AP/Evan Vucci
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By Bill Blum — The idealistic left might be willing to gamble away the judiciary, but the right never will.
Posted on Oct 31, 2012
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 Wikimedia Commons
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In 1973, Gore Vidal published a novel that struck at the ankles of the notion that the United States is a country founded by altruistic do-gooders whose highest ambition was the creation and protection of the Constitution.
Posted on Aug 18, 2012
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By Mike Lofgren, Viking Press —
Having observed politics up close and personal for most of my adult lifetime, I have come to the conclusion that the rise of politicized religious fundamentalism may have been the key ingredient in the transformation of the Republican Party.
Posted on Aug 9, 2012
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Nate Beeler, The Columbus Dispatch —
Posted on Jun 28, 2012
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 AP/Charles Dharapak
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By Robert Scheer — Mitt Romney and his advisers have not yet grasped that the health care decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts has changed the terms of the debate.
Posted on Jun 28, 2012
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 AP/Artist rendering
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By Bill Blum — As the country waits in fear and loathing for the high tribunal to drop the dime on Obamacare, we might do well to parse the damage Chief Justice John Roberts and his colleagues have already done this term to our collective rights and liberties.
Posted on Jun 6, 2012
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 cliff1066™ (CC BY 2.0)
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Reflecting on his arrest with Kurt Vonnegut while protesting apartheid outside the South African consulate in the early 1980s, David Lindorff, founder of the news blog This Can’t Be Happening, says he and the author might be treated differently if they were arrested today.
Posted on May 26, 2012
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Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune —
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 U.S. Dept. of Justice
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According to Attorney General Eric Holder, it is within the government’s rights to kill American citizens implicated in anti-U.S. terrorist plots hatched abroad. Along with general human rights concerns, this raises some issues vis-à-vis the Constitution and the Fifth Amendment.
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 Parti socialiste (CC-BY)
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By Peter Bratsis, Truthout —
The most central and constant dilemma in modern politics—whether the will of the people or that of bureaucrats and specialists should rule—is on full display in Greece.
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Taylor Jones, Cagle Cartoons, Politicalcartoons.com —
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 bbc.co.uk
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On Wednesday, Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and other officials hailed the arrival of a new constitution, slated to go up for a referendum later this month, but the Obama administration didn’t greet the news with much credulity or enthusiasm.
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 AP / Jeff Chiu
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Here’s some real progress and some good news: On Tuesday, a federal appeals court in San Francisco decided, in a 2-1 ruling, that California’s infamous Proposition 8, the same-sex marriage ban approved by voters in 2008, was unconstitutional. Now, on to the Supreme Court.
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 Wikimedia Commons / Jmquez (CC-BY-SA)
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In what looks to many civil rights watchdogs like an ominous throwback to the days of apartheid, the South African parliament passed a law Tuesday that significantly curtails the ability of the press to cover stories about politically sensitive subjects, according to the government’s standards.
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 Wikimedia Commons / Brett Weinstein (CC-BY-SA)
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Hip-hop impresario Russell Simmons has thrown in as one of the high-profile 1 percenters to support Occupy Wall Street, speaking and tweeting his allegiance since the movement’s early days. There are even rumors that he may be one of the power players involved with a shadow affinity group ... (more)
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 Wikimedia Commons
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Conservative types sure are liberal about whom, or what, they’re willing to call a person. Hey, corporations are people too! And according to Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and other like-minded state legislators, so is a fertilized egg.
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 DEA
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Since last summer, applicants for government assistance in Florida have been required to pass a drug test before receiving federal help, but on Monday a federal judge temporarily blocked that measure in response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU.
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 Flickr / borman818 (CC-BY)
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The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to review whether Congress overreached its constitutional power by passing the 2010 health care law, which would require almost every American to have health insurance.
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 mediacutts Productions (CC-BY)
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North Carolina has been the only state in the Southeast without a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, but that may change. A state House committee approved a measure that, if passed by a supermajority of legislators, would put the amendment to a public vote in May.
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 Ken Mayer (CC-BY)
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A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Court of Appeals in Virginia ruled in favor of the health care reform law Thursday, dismissing two suits. (more)
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 calebjc (CC-BY-SA)
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By Richard Reeves — Are we a nation of brothers who come to the aid of each other? Or are we just a crowd of folks out for ourselves? Why have a country if we don’t use it to help each other?
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By Derek Lazzaro — A warrant is out on Mrfuddlesticks. Apparently the cops in Renton, Wash., can’t take a joke, and that has put a constitutional right in jeopardy.
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 AP / Pablo Martinez Monsivais
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By Moshe Adler — If the deficit remains unfunded, the president should withhold money from the enforcement and the support of laws that enrich the rich. This would lead to higher wages for workers and lower prices for consumers, and it would help shield them from the cuts he wants to make in income security programs.
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 Rob Shenk (CC-BY-SA)
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California’s overcrowded prisons have “fallen short of minimum constitutional requirements,” causing “needless suffering and death,” according to a 5-4 majority of the U.S. Supreme Court. The state, which imposes draconian sentences on repeat offenders, must now find a way to reduce its prison population by at least 38,000 inmates.
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 AP / Haraz N. Ghanbari
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It’s not just the more conservative members of Congress who are challenging President Obama’s course of action in Libya; besides the likes of Ron Paul and John Boehner from the Republican side, Dennis Kucinich, Maxine Waters and Jim Webb ...
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 AP / Ahmed Ali
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In results released Sunday evening, 77 percent of Egyptian voters have endorsed amendments to their country’s constitution that will pave the way for parliamentary elections, which the military junta said will be held in June.
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 Flickr / laverrue
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Just in time for campaign season, the Obama administration appears to be picking up the slack, ever so slightly, on the gay rights front by refusing to defend part of the notorious Defense of Marriage Act in court.
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 Composite: Flickr: oneras / free tibet
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By Stanley Kutler — The Constitution is rooted and understood in terms of its history; without that, it is merely an isolated document, portraying a moment in 1787. We can do without the arriviste Michele Bachmann to tell us exactly what its words mean.
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 news.bbc.co.uk
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As Egyptians struggle with where their country will now go after Hosni Mubarak’s capitulation, the country’s military leaders dissolved parliament, suspended the constitution and sent soldiers in to try to clear remaining protesters from Tahrir Square.
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 AP / Soliman Oteifi
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As protests in Egypt continued to rage, just-installed Vice President Omar Suleiman has come to an agreement with some opposition groups to liberalize the media, release political prisoners and undergo a transition of power “within a constitutional framework.”
Posted on Feb 6, 2011
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By Ruth Marcus — I’ve been bristling recently at conservatives’ dual hijacking: morality and the Constitution as the domain of small-government conservatives. I’d like them back.
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On Wednesday, yet another longtime leader of a Middle Eastern nation in turmoil addressed his nation, and Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh followed the Egyptian example by claiming that he too would perhaps step down sort of soon.
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Fake news by Andy Borowitz —
In addition, Bachmann suggested slashing the federal budget by eliminating nine of the first 10 amendments to the Constitution. “I think you know which one I’d keep,” she chuckled.
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By Christopher Ketcham, AlterNet —
On the anniversary of the Citizens United decision, Vermont politicians are moving to deny corporations the rights that humans enjoy.
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Do left-leaning Americans have something against the Constitution? That’s but one suggestion that conservative guest commentator Jennifer Rubin makes on this week’s edition of “Left, Right & Center,” and needless to say, it doesn’t go over so well.
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 Flickr / Stefano Mortellaro (CC-BY-ND)
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Gulet Mohamed is an 18-year old American citizen who was effectively exiled while traveling abroad for the apparent crime of exploring his Muslim heritage. While in Kuwait, Mohamed was added to the no-fly list, arrested, beaten and threatened with torture. Glenn Greenwald has posted a 50-minute conversation with Mohamed.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Welcome to the Republicans who take over the House of Representatives this week. Since it is a new year, let us be optimistic about what this development means for our nation.
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 White House / Pete Souza
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It’s not like nobody saw this coming, but Monday, one Judge Henry E. Hudson of Richmond, Va., kicked off the next round of attacks on what the right still likes to call “Obamacare” by contesting the constitutionality ...
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 AP / April L.Brown
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By Stanley Kutler — In our post-factual world, history has become another battlefield, with far-flung hostilities over cultural and political differences as well as the imperial adventures abroad.
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 Flickr / dherrera_96 (CC-BY)
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Texas is one of those states that would appear to be among the least likely to do away with capital punishment anytime soon, but as The Huffington Post’s Laura Bassett reports, a district court in the Lone Star State will reconsider the death penalty this Monday.
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