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Military Sexual Assaults And No Justice
Tweet Share on Facebook April 11, 2013 CommentIt's hard enough for a woman to report a case of sexual assault, given the lingering judgments of the victim herself and suspicions – ones not present in cases of robbery or simple assault – that the victim must be lying or brought the attack on herself. It is even harder for a woman in the overwhelmingly male-dominated military to make such a charge, since she faces not only the same sexist judgments a civilian woman endures, but the added backlash from fellow soldiers she must rely on for her very safety in the field.
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McConnell Tape on Ashley Judd Isn't Watergate
Tweet Share on Facebook April 10, 2013 CommentIs it some sort of Mad Men-esque nostalgia that makes us search desperately for some sort of Watergate type scandal? You wouldn't know it from the reaction of the political world, but the "scandal" arising from a surreptitiously obtained tape of a campaign discussion at the headquarters of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell doesn't make the cut.
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Margaret Thatcher's Legacy as a Leader and a Woman
Tweet Share on Facebook April 9, 2013 CommentShe was tough. The Iron Lady was her nickname. She didn't call herself a feminist, but her very success is viewed as a feminist symbol.
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President Obama’s Salary Cut And the Worth of Public Employees
Tweet Share on Facebook April 8, 2013 CommentPresident Obama's decision to give back 5 percent of his salary to show solidarity with the public workers who will lose money because of the sequester has been roundly dismissed as a cheap stunt. It's not that much money, after all, for someone who makes $400,000 a year and is given free room and board. And the president is already wealthy in his own right, having between $2.8 million and $11.8 million in assets, largely from book sales, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
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The U.S. Embassy in Egypt and the Rise of Twitter Diplomacy
Tweet Share on Facebook April 4, 2013 CommentThe question is not whether comedian Jon Stewart was right in slamming the Egyptian government for jailing local humorist Bassem Youssef for allegedly insulting Islam and the presidency of Mohammed Morsi. Of course he was right, and his may have been one of the few news outlets – fake or otherwise – to bring attention to the issue. Nor is the question whether the U.S. Embassy in Cairo should express its consternation with the jailing; it is absolutely the role of American missions to stand up for free speech and democracy.
The disturbing part of this little drama is this: has human discourse – even that among diplomats and world leaders – become so degraded and teenage that they are communicating through Twitter?
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The Smarter Way for New York To Discourage Teen Pregnancy
Tweet Share on Facebook April 3, 2013 CommentIt's not that the heart-tugging subway ads in New York City warning against teen pregnancy are misleading – although they are. It's that they are making the wrong argument, at least from a strategic perspective.
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The Problem With David Stockman's Economic Solutions
Tweet Share on Facebook April 2, 2013 CommentReagan-era budget director David Stockman may be forever associated with a comical and controversial idea: That ketchup can pass as a vegetable to satisfy regulations for school lunches. The idea was quickly dropped, and Stockman himself said at the time that the administration had "not only egg on its face, but ketchup, too."
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Texas Prosecutor's Death An Attack on Justice Itself
Tweet Share on Facebook April 1, 2013 CommentShould we be more upset that a Texas prosecutor was gunned down and killed than we are over the shooting death of someone less prominent?
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Rep. Young Shows GOP Still Has a Ways to Go With Latino Voters
Tweet Share on Facebook March 29, 2013 CommentThe Republican party, seeking to expand its potential base, is planning significant outreach to Latino citizens. They probably shouldn't put Representative Don Young in the ads.
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David Petraeus, Mark Sanford Should Stop Apologizing for Their Affairs
Tweet Share on Facebook March 28, 2013 CommentDavid Petreaus is sorry. So is Mark Sanford. So was David Letterman and Tiger Woods and a slew of other men who had extramarital affairs. Why on Earth should we care?
