Hold Fast

The United Nations could be a great force for human rights in the world. But I find it hard to believe it will reach any meaningful goal if it continues to avoid actually appointing people who have miserable records on human rights to the UN’s high commission on human rights. Ban Ki-Moon has appointed Croatian [...]

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Oklahoma style. I’ve never been taken by the right’s attacks on “big government.” Most of it has always struck me as a handy catch-all for programs and policies that they just don’t like, while very few have actually any impact on the way these people will lead their lives. The EPA regulating pollution-causing industrial process [...]

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The New York Times editorial board has a truly righteous condemnation of Uganda and the American Christian Evangelical preachers who are leading the charge to pass a bill outlawing homosexuality in Uganda. There is plenty that is being written already about Uganda’s odious bill, which if passed would punish homosexuality with death. But what is [...]

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Leading Chinese political dissident Liu Xiaobo was sentenced by the Chinese government to 11 years in jail for “inciting subversion of state power”; additionally Liu is banned from speaking or writing about politics at all for two years. Liu is one of China’s most high profile advocates of free speech and democracy. He was on [...]

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Dear Jim Wallis, The Stupak Amendment does not achieve “neutrality” by the government when it comes to funding abortion coverage. It makes it impossible for a woman to buy insurance that covers abortions, which are, by the way, legal procedures in America. By creating a two-tiered health care system where wealthy women can have abortion [...]

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Walter Lara is a 23 year-old honor student facing deportation on July 6, 2009. Walters family immigrated from Argentina when he was three years old. He has only known life as an American, and proudly declares that the United States is my home. U.S. Senator Bill Nelson wrote the Department of Homeland Security on Walter’s [...]

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This is great news. Dodd is now where he should be on marriage equality. I’m very proud of him for this. His willingness to re-evaluate his beliefs should be a model for other elected officials nationwide. My young daughters are growing up in a different reality than I did. Our family knows many same-sex couples [...]

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Hilzoy has a number of very good, specific policy recommendations stemming from the Ezra Klein/Duncan Black premise that this is a moment for the president and Congress to show that Scott Roeder and the “pro-life” terrorists will not win in their effort to defeat the right of choice through violence and terrorism. Hilzoy writes: One [...]

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Obviously the assassination of Dr. George Tiller was the work of a lone terrorist.

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Ezra Klein, in addition to being one of the leading progressive healthcare journalists, has long been one of the leading male voices in the blogosphere in support of feminism. It’s no surprise that his response to the murder of Dr. George Tiller really drives home some of the lessons that I both think America should [...]

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