Pretty Cool

post from Talking Points Memo on 08 May 2012 02:00:41 PM. © Talking Points Memo

TPM Reader GJ recalls contacting Maurice Sendak about using Where The Wild Things Are images in his high school's yearbook: I think your question regarding the generation gap concerning the familiarity of Maurice Sendak confuses two issues: familiarity[...]

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Romney takes credit for Big Auto recovery he was
against

post from US Politics | AMERICAblog News on 08 May 2012 02:00:18 PM. © US Politics | AMERICAblog News

Dear god it never ends with Mitt Romney. John Kerry may have been a flip-flopper but Mitt Romney takes it to an entirely new level. Think of Kerry as the Diet Coke or the margarine of flip-floppers compared to Mitt Romney. While it's easy to appreciate Romney's creative ability to rewrite history in his mind and pretend that his past never happened, it's a concern when he's running for...

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-big-auto.html

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‘Last Vehicle Out Of Iraq’ Lands On
American Soil

post from ThinkProgress on 08 May 2012 02:00:04 PM. © ThinkProgress

The last convoy of American troops exited Iraq on December, 18, 2011. Nearly 5 months later, the last military vehicle that left Iraq has made its way home to the United States. A Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle, or MRAP, touched town at the Port of Beaumont in Texas yesterday and will be on permanent display at Fort Hood. A note written in chalk on the truck included an Army star and the words “Last Vehicle Out of Iraq”:

Watch video of the MRAP touching down on American soil:

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http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/05/08/480204/last-vehicle-out-of-iraq-land
s-on-american-soil/

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Tenth Circuit Upholds Ban On Firearm Possession
By Undocumented Immigrants

post from ThinkProgress on 08 May 2012 02:00:04 PM. © ThinkProgress

The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit upheld the federal ban on gun possession by undocumented immigrants yesterday, against a claim that the ban violates the Second Amendment. Significantly, however, the court did not adopt a dangerous legal argument embraced by the Fifth and Eighth Circuits which could also strip undocumented persons of their Fourth Amendment right to be free from unlawful searches and seizures. Prior to yesterday’s opinion, the Fifth Circuit’s potential assault on immigrants’ right to be secure in their homes and free from unlawful arrests appeared to be gaining steam. The Tenth Circuit’s opinion presents an alternative way to uphold the ban on gun possession without harming essential protections against lawless arrests or illegal searches. [HT: Eugene Volokh]

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irearm-possession-by-undocumented-immigrants/

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House GOP Budget Could Cut Funding For Economic
Data That Could Have Helped Prevent The Financial Crisis

post from ThinkProgress on 08 May 2012 02:00:04 PM. © ThinkProgress

Three federal government agencies that collect and analyze American economic data could face spending cuts under the House Republican budget, jeopardizing important funds won by the agencies in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

The U.S. Census Bureau began fighting for extra funding in the 1990s and pushed for more money to study real estate and financial data in 2003, arguing that the analysis was important to measure growing markets in the American economy. It didn’t win the funding until 2009, though, after the financial crisis had already hit, Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports:

Finally, in early 2009, after the real estate-fueled financial crisis, Congress gave Census what it had been asking for?an extra $8.1 million. In the view of many, it was too late. ?That?s a grand example of how nickel-and-diming statistics agencies can screw up the economy,? says Andrew Reamer, a research professor at the George Washington University Institute of Public Policy and a member of the BEA?s advisory committee. ?The government saved $8 million, but how many trillions were lost as a result of not being able to see the crisis coming??
That extra data, says Reamer, would?ve revealed just how quickly certain parts of the economy were slowing down. For example, in April 2008 the BEA, with no quarterly data to work with, estimated that finance and insurance sector activity fell 0.3 percent in 2007. In July 2011, the BEA recrunched those numbers using quarterly data and showed declines of 2.2 percent, 5.3 percent, and 9.9 percent for those sectors in the last three quarters of 2007.

According to Bloomberg, the three agencies that collect and analyze most economic data — the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics — have combined budgets of $1.6 billion, less than a tenth-of-one-percent of the federal budget. But under the Republican budget authored by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), the agencies are likely to face budget cuts that wipe away the extra funds they received after the financial crisis, a move not even the Chamber of Commerce — a typical GOP ally on deficit reduction — supports.

The House GOP’s budget makes also makes cuts to other programs that resulted from the financial crisis. It repeals reforms that were a part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act, slashes the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s budget by two-thirds, and eliminates the federal government’s foreclosure prevention program.

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Ed Rendell: Obama Should ‘Man Up’ And
Embrace Same-Sex Marriage

post from ThinkProgress on 08 May 2012 02:00:04 PM. © ThinkProgress

During an appearance on MSNBC Tuesday morning, former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) — who supported marriage equality while in office — called on President Obama to back the cause and lead on the issue. “I think he should do exactly what [former RNC chairman] Michael Steele said he should do. He should man up and say, this is what I believe. And I think he doesn’t lose any African-American votes,” he said. “The people who vote solely on this issue, single issue voter, gay marriage, none of them are voting for Barack Obama now and they’re not going to vote for him whether he says he’s against it.” Watch it:

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http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/05/08/480155/rendell-marriage/

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Catholic School Won’t Recognize Gay
Student’s $40,000 Scholarship

post from ThinkProgress on 08 May 2012 02:00:04 PM. © ThinkProgress

Every year, the Des Moines-based Eychaner Foundation awards the Matthew Shepard Scholarship to a group of openly LGBT high school students who have excelled in academics and given back to their communities. This year, one of the recipients is Keaton Fuller at Prince of Peace Catholic School, but the school has decided to bar the Foundation to present the award at graduation. The Catholic Diocese of Davenport claims that its policy prevents an organization with a position contrary to church teachings to present at the school. Fuller has drafted a letter expressing how stigmatized he feels about the decision:

I have never felt as invalidated and unaccepted as I have upon hearing the news that the scholarship that I have worked so hard for not just in the application process, but also in my deportment and actions over the years, would not be recognized in the way that it should at the graduation ceremony. It is difficult to understand how after I have spent thirteen years at this school and worked hard during all of them, I would be made to feel that my accomplishments are less than everybody else?s. This whole ordeal has been incredibly hurtful, and I am even sadder that this will be one of my last experiences to remember my high school years by.
This is a teachable moment for Prince of Peace to stand up against rejecting and invalidating the accomplishments of any student. Please help me by respectfully requesting that this decision be reversed. Share your thoughts about why all students deserve to be treated with respect and dignity at Prince of Peace.

An accompanying Change.org petition urging Prince of Peace to let Fuller accept his award has already garnered over 3,700 signatures. Rather than upholding Catholic teachings, the supposed policy seeks to erase LGBT students and their contributions to society. The school should be proud to have an accomplished graduate like Keaton Fuller and ashamed that it would even consider ostracizing him for his success.

Watch a local news report about the controversy:

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y-students-40000-scholarship/

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Romney's position on immigration is so clear, his
own people don't understand it

The Republican Party's director of Hispanic outreach, Bettina Inclan:

"I think as a candidate, to my understanding, he's still deciding what his position on immigration is. I can't talk about what his position is going to be," Inclan said.

A short while later:

I misspoke, Romney's position on immigration is clear http://t.co/...
? @BettinaInclan via TweetDeck

Ha ha, if it was so clear, she wouldn't be so confused about it. But can we blame her? On any given day, Romney can be on any side of any issue, and there are Etch A Sketches, and Marco Rubio trying to be only 2/3rds as hateful as the rest of his party, while the teabaggers are trying to be twice as hateful.

It's a crappy job, but someone has to pretend to do it.

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immigration-is-so-clear-his-own-people-don-t-understand-it

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A Leaderless World

I recently had a chance to speak at a conference where Dr. Ian Bremmer spoke after me. I was very impressed with his thought process and asked him to give me an outline of his speech to share with you for this week’s Outside the Box. It’s a shorter version of his powerhouse book, Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World. I highly recommend it.

And what, you’re asking, is a "G-Zero world"? In a word, it’s a leaderless world. A world in which, as Bremmer says, … [visit site to read . . . → Read More: A Leaderless World

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http://jutiagroup.com/20120508-a-leaderless-world/

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Germanys Angela Merkel to Hollande: No Dice on
Reopening EU Fiscal Pact

Germany's Angela Merkel dismissed newly elected French President Francois Hollande's call to renegotiate the European fiscal pact to include growth measures rather than merely budget constraints. But as more Euro governments face electoral opposition to[...]

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