Remembering President Woodrow Wilson’s purge of black federal workers.
The editor of the Berkshire Eagle, a community paper in western Massachusetts, is taking heat for and now explaining (with a good explanation) why the Eagle published an op-ed by a guy named Steven Nikitas, a “conservative activist” from Pittsfield.
As editor Kevin Moran explains, Nikitas is one of several people who contribute op-eds ‘from the right’ on behalf of the local Republican party. It seems Nikitas’s latest editorial on the “debased”, “immature” and “cowardly” culture of black America got a lot of people upset.
For all the blaze of history and march of freedom this week, no doubt for me the highlight was Justice Scalia’s invoking John C. Calhoun’s “concurrent majority” theory on behalf of denying marriage equality to gay men and women.
Just mesmerized by Obama’s tour de force eulogy in South Carolina. Words can’t really do it justice, which you know if you were watching the live speech and Twitter simultaneously.
I don’t know if it was the history-making of this week — gay marriage and health care for all — or the history-remaking of this week — the lowering of Confederate flags — that made us primed for such a speech. But from the tragedy in South Carolina came his most resounding speech, his most uninhibited confrontation of race in America, and his most uninhibited self-expression on the public stage.
You can — and should — watch the whole thing here.
LGBT legal advocacy groups now moving to make sure the Supreme Court’s gay marriage decision is enforced nationwide, county by county.
Where was gay marriage illegal before today’s Supreme Court ruling?
The Supreme Court’s decision on same-sex marriage will kick off a whole new wave of LGBT marriages, particularly in the 15 states where it was illegal before today. Even before today’s decision, advocates for marriage equality were girding for the next step in the legal battle, which includes forcing local officials to duly issue marriage licenses, fighting off last-ditch lawsuits, and otherwise clearing out all the underbrush that could block the path for LGBT couples exercising their hard-won constitutional right to marry.
We’re following that story closely. If you see open defiance of the Supreme Court’s decision — everything from county clerks refusing to issue licenses to attorneys general going back to the courts to candidates vowing to ignore the Supreme Court — send us an email. We’re tracking these developments across the country and want to see what you’re seeing.
Antonin Scalia’s rabid dissent on gay marriage is getting most of the attention, but John Roberts’ dissent is more thoughtful and at the same time more bleak and even foreboding. He claims LGBT couples have “lost forever” with the Supreme Court’s decision:
Full video of Obama’s remarks on the gay marriage decision. Watch.
Special bonus: CNN captures Obama talking by phone to the lead plaintiff, who was outside the Supreme Court shortly after the ruling.