We may like to think that the barbaric practice of female genital mutilation is a Third World relic, happening only in distant and uncivilized backwaters. Not so. FGM is happening right here in America, in communities of successful and highly educated people.Here's some unfortunate evidence. In April, the FBI arrested Jumana Nagarwala, an emergency-room doctor and native-born American citizen, on charges of cutting two seven-year-old girls. Two more people, including another doctor, were … [Read more...]
Letter-Writing Wednesday: Andrew Cuomo’s Bad Faith
January 18, 2017 by Leave a Comment
Dear Governor Cuomo:As a New York State resident and a Democrat, I was dismayed to read that you vetoed a bipartisan bill passed by the legislature to reform the state's woefully inadequate public-defender system. What's even more disgraceful is that you let the legislature pass the bill back in June of last year and then sat on it, waiting until the last possible moment to announce your veto, to ensure that the legislative session would be over and there'd be no chance to override it until … [Read more...]
When Should a President Prosecute Their Predecessor?
October 12, 2016 by Leave a Comment
The standout moment at Sunday's debate had to be Donald Trump's thuggish threat to jail Hillary Clinton:"If I win," Donald Trump threatened Hillary Clinton during Sunday night's debate, "I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation... People have been, their lives have been destroyed for doing one fifth of what you have done. And it's a disgrace.""You know," Clinton later responded, "It's just awfully good that someone with the … [Read more...]
Roy Moore’s Final Act
October 3, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Good news from Alabama: disgraced Christian theocrat Roy Moore has been booted out of his judicial seat. The state Court of the Judiciary suspended Moore without pay for the rest of his term, removing him from office in all but name.This is the final act of a drama that began last year, when Moore attempted to provoke a constitutional crisis by ordering state courts to ignore a federal court decision in favor of same-sex marriage. He called it an "unlawful opinion[] issued without … [Read more...]
Weekend Coffee: September 3
September 3, 2016 by Leave a Comment
• Michele Bachmann says Christian conservatives will never win another election if Hillary Clinton wins this one. From her mouth to God's ears!• On Radiolab this week, "The Girl Who Doesn't Exist": Alecia Faith Pennington escaped a conservative-Christian/sovereign-citizen homeschool cult, but her parents deliberately never got her a birth certificate, a Social Security number, or any other ID. How do you prove to the world that you exist?• Humanity is solving … [Read more...]
The Injustices of the American Justice System
July 13, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Again and yet again, America is bleeding. The latest eruption of protests and anger came in response to the brutal, unnecessary police killings of two black men, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, and then the carnage in Dallas where a deranged sniper killed five police officers and wounded more before being killed in turn.Whether any of this will spur reform, or whether violence will only beget more violence, either way it's clear that there's a chasm between police and the communities … [Read more...]
The Supreme Court Un-TRAPs Abortion Rights
June 29, 2016 by Leave a Comment
If you're a liberal court-watcher, you may be feeling an unaccustomed fresh breeze blowing from the direction of the Supreme Court. It smells like... optimism.Over the past year, the court has handed down a string of good decisions. The justices legalized marriage equality and upheld Obamacare not once but twice.And this month, there were three more surprising victories, on affirmative action, domestic violence and guns, and now the biggest win of all: Whole Woman's Health v. … [Read more...]
Weekend Coffee: June 19
June 19, 2016 by Leave a Comment
• "As I went walking, I saw a sign there And on the sign it said: '© Ludlow Music, a subsidiary of the Richmond Organization, Member ASCAP. All Rights Reserved.' But on the other side it didn't say nothing, That side was made for you and me."• The Cool PopeTM says your marriage is invalid because you don't hate divorce enough, you bad, bad people.• A debilitating vaccine-caused injury is miraculously cured by hidden cameras. (My favorite part is her claim that the shot … [Read more...]
How Billionaire Lawfare Threatens Free Speech
May 30, 2016 by Leave a Comment
I didn't have a strong opinion on Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker Media for posting his sex tape, until I found out that Peter Thiel was secretly funding it. (You may remember him as the billionaire libertarian who's against democracy in general and women's suffrage in particular.) Thiel has held a grudge against Gawker since it outed him as gay a few years ago, and ever since then, he's been quietly looking for a lawsuit to back that could destroy the company. With this case, he may have … [Read more...]
Theocratic Fraud in Ultra-Orthodox Judaism
March 28, 2016 by Leave a Comment
Religious sects and cults that conceive of themselves as serving a higher, sacred purpose will, almost inevitably, end up believing that they're above the law. We've seen this recently with the FLDS Mormon splinter cult and the Catholic church protecting monstrous child abusers, and now there's another example on offer.I've written about the malign political influence of ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Judaism, both in New York City and in the upstate satellite community of Kiryas Joel. Because they … [Read more...]
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