This actually really surprises me. Ratings for the premier of this season’s Duck Dynasty were actually down dramatically from last year. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that going on a racist, homophobic rant ain’t great for ratings. (Actually, who knows?) But I’m surprised just the brouhaha itself didn’t juice ratings. I’ve never watched the show. But I could have seen myself tuning in just to see what these dudes were about. Apparently not.
State judge in Pennsylvania rules that the state’s controversial voter ID law is unconstitutional.
Over the last two to three years, everyone has come to see that the tide has turned in favor of marriage equality: It’s not a matter of if, but when, same sex marriage rights become the law of the land nationwide. Last month I noted that court cases in Utah and Ohio signaled that that ‘when’ may be coming much sooner than we’ve imagined, with the Supreme Court likely to be pressed to accept and act on the logic of the decision in US v Windsor and rule that states cannot discriminate against same sex couples in marriage rights.
Now we have another data point: Even in Utah, arguably the most conservative state in the union, the public is evenly divided on whether lesbians and gays should be allowed to marry.
Senior International Olympic Committee officials criticizes US for sending “four lesbians” to Sochi.
More from Sahil Kapur on the newly proposed fix to the Voting Rights Act that was unveiled today … and how it lets voter ID laws off easy.
Not all of us would survive first adult contact with a full revelation of our college age selves. But there’s some pretty funny and quite characterologically consistent stuff in this piece about how Chris Christie cut his political teeth in student government at University of Delaware. Christie set up his own political machine, a corrupt one in the eyes of campus critics. He was elected president of the student government. And then when he left he arranged to have his future wife, Mary Pat, installed as his successor, even though he was no longer in school. And Todd Christie, Chris’s bro apparently managed stuff as “chairman of the election committee.”
Fascinating email from TPM Reader DW about the sheer level of attempted sabotage down at the ground level in GOP-run Obamacare rejectionist states.
I am a healthcare attorney for an insurance company and I wanted to share our experience with the implementation of the ACA. I know the idea is that state legislators have been working to subvert the ACA, but it actually goes deeper.
All things considered, best to keep the ‘lynching’ metaphor to people who are black, come from historically terrorized minorities and/or most of all end up dying by being hanged from a tree. On the other hand, maybe not: Rothenberg: Christie Scandal Has Become A ‘Political Lynching’
Marion Johnson on North Carolina’s rollback of voting rights to post-Reconstruction-era restrictions: “Much like the voter suppression of a century ago, many elements in North Carolina’s new law will disproportionately hurt black and low-income voters. According to Democracy NC, 29 percent of early voters and 34 percent of same-day registrants in 2012 were black.”
One of the questions that hangs over the Chris Christie bridge scandal involves his hot-headed spokesman, Michael Drewniak. Emails show Drewniak met with one of the Port Authority officials at the center of the scandal just a short time before the official announced his resignation. So what was said at that dinner, and what role does it play in the scandal? Plenty of questions here.