Supreme Court

As Love wins out at Supreme Court, did Justices in Minority encourage States, Fundamentalists to Defy Ruling?

By Danielle Weatherby, Timothy Holbrook and Robert A. Schapiro | (The Conversation) | – – Editor’s note: Today the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that marriage is a legal right – striking down same-sex marriage bans in 14 states and ordering states to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. Marriage is a fundamental right Today’s […]

Featured

Rand Paul: GOP Hawks are Obama’s “Lapdogs;” McCain: Paul ‘Worst Candidate’

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) The philosophical difference between the Libertarian-leaning Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and the GOP hawks has burst into open name-calling. First, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said that Paul had been more wrong than right, and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) jumped in, calling him “naive.” On Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom” on […]

African-Americans

In New Gilded Age, Social Protest dominates Academy Awards Ceremony

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – If social and economic inequality were a mine, and if America were deep in this mine with a canary in tow, the canary would long since have expired. Some 400 billionaires have more wealth than the bottom half of Americans. We lived through a year of dramatic incidents […]

African-Americans

Race inequality between US Whites and African-Americans by the Numbers (Again)

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | — With regard to employment, African-Americans got hit harder by the Bush Depression than did whites, and jobs have not come back for them at nearly the same rate: This vast difference between Euro-American and African-American rates of employment holds true regardless of educational level; college-educated African-Americans are also twice as […]

Banking

Top 5 Reasons “Labor Day” isn’t for Laborers Anymore

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole Calling the bottom of a river a “bed” is a metaphor. Imagine the river restlessly sleeping on its muddy mattress. But when we’ve so internalized a metaphor that we forget it is a figure of speech, as with the phrase “river bed,” it is called a “dead metaphor.” Labor Day is, alas, […]

Bill of Rights

SCOTUS: Corporate “Persons” have Religions, can Deny You Birth Control Coverage

contributors

By Mindy Fischer On Monday the Supreme Court handed down its ruling on the Hobby Lobby case. They ruled in a 5-4 decision that corporations who have religious objections to birth control no longer have to pay for insurance coverage of those contraceptives, as mandated under Obamacare. This decision actually marks the first time that […]

Bill of Rights

Supreme Court Requires Warrants for Cell Searches, But won’t Protect Internet Streaming

contributors

Via Electronic Frontier Foundation Justices Rule Changing Technology Demands Limits for Police but Requires Permission from TV Broadcasters San Francisco – The U.S. Supreme Court issued two big rulings in important technology cases today. In a groundbreaking decision on cell phone privacy, the court set powerful limits for police searches of cell phones, ruling in […]