President Donald Trump invited the Dodgers to the White House. Many of their fans feared that the team, by accepting, would humiliate themselves and betray the team’s large Latino, Asian and African-American fan base. Dodgers controlling owner Mark Walter, along with co-owner Magic Johnson, have proposed a solution. Trump has promised that if he can keep the championship trophy, the Commissioner’s Trophy, he will end all seizures and deportations of immigrants.   read more

From 2001 to 2010, the murder total dropped in the U.S., including a 16.7% decline in the largest cities. Unfortunately, homicides increased by almost the same percentage, 16.9%, in suburban communities during the same period. Public officials theorize that criminals have found a lower law enforcement presence in the suburbs than in the big cities, and have therefore re-targeted their efforts to the areas of least resistance.   read more

According to election officials, the reasons for the long lines—some of which stretched for blocks—included lengthy ballots, heavy voter turnout, and reduced early voting days. Theodore Allen, a professor from Ohio State University, estimated that as many as 49,000 Floridians were discouraged from voting because of the long waits.   read more

Perdue decided to issue a full “pardon of innocence’ after the state chapter of the NAACP and other advocates presented her with new information that revealed the prosecutor, Assistant New Hanover County District Attorney James “Jay” Stroud Jr., wrote glowingly of white jurors believed to be Ku Klux Klan members while labeling one black juror as an “Uncle Tom type.” For some members of the Wilmington Ten, the pardons came far too late. Four have died, and several others are in poor health.   read more

The law permits the NSA to pry into Americans’ international emails and phone calls without obtaining a court order. The spying program, which would have ended on December 31 without the extension, has been heavily criticized by civil libertarians. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said in a prepared statement that the law’s “main purpose” is to “give the government nearly unfettered access to Americans' international communications.”   read more

The problems encountered by the Kulluk were not unexpected…at least to people other than those who work for Shell or the U.S. government. In August, when the Obama administration gave Shell the go-ahead for exploratory drilling, environmentalists warned that Shell and federal regulators were not prepared to deal with the dangers that come with oil drilling in frozen waters.   read more

Included in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (pdf) is a section mandating most businesses to offer employees insurance coverage for contraceptive drugs and devices and other birth control methods. More than 40 lawsuits have been filed by opponents of the requirement, including one from the construction firm Korte & Luitjohan Contractors, whose owners, Cyril and Jane Korte, objected to the rule based on their Catholic beliefs.   read more

Buried within the tome that is the federal healthcare reform law is a provision, only recently noticed and now much debated, that restricts doctors from gathering data about their patients’ gun habits. The clause, which falls under the heading “Protection of Second Amendment Gun Rights,” was added to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act at the insistence of the National Rifle Association (NRA).   read more

The rightward drift of the Republicans can be partially attributed to the remapping of House districts into increasingly partisan populations in which one party overwhelmingly dominates. From the Republican perspective this means that primary elections are more important than general elections, and incumbents are more worried about defending themselves against primary opponents from the Right than they are about the Democrats they face in November contests.   read more

No analyst blamed Romney’s defeat solely on his 47% remark. But the number did indeed come back to haunt him…. Once all the votes were counted after Election Day, the results showed that the Republican candidate lost to Obama by four points: 51% to (you guessed it) 47%.   read more

Every year, a group of conspiracy theorists gathers on November 22 at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, to commemorate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. But the group has been denied a permit for 2013 because the city plans to observe the 50th anniversary of the tragic event, and it doesn’t want alternative theories over who was behind the killing to be a distraction.   read more

“Why should churches be exempt from basic financial reporting requirements? Equally important, why would churches not wish to be accountable?” Annie Laurie Gaylor, FFRF co-president, said in a press release. “Having tax-exempt status is a great privilege, and in exchange for that privilege, all other groups must file a detailed report annually to the IRS and the public on how we spend donations.”   read more

More than half of the 232 were imprisoned in just three countries. Turkey has the distinction of being the worst offender when it comes to jailing reporters, arresting 49. Second was Iran, with 45, and China third, with 32. The longest held of the Turkish prisoners is Hatice Duman, the editor of a socialist newspaper, who was arrested on April 12, 2003.   read more

The December 25 attacks may have been in response to Iranian hackers going after computers in Saudi Arabia’s oil industry and some American banks a few months ago. On December 31, the Iranian government claimed that during a six-day naval drill staged to show off new torpedoes, the Navy’s “cyber defense group” repelled a mock attack on its defensive computer network.   read more

If the job of Congress is to pass laws, then the 112th Congress is the laziest in modern history. Of the 6,600 bills introduced, lawmakers passed only 231. At least 45 of the successful bills involved the naming of federal buildings, while many others were similarly insignificant, such as six commemorative coin bills and five correcting “technical errors” Congress made in past legislation. This paltry productivity means the 112th Congress will be the least productive in modern history.   read more

The public and political outrage that followed the Newtown school shooting has largely ignored the fact that children across the country have been victims of gun violence on a regular basis. Between 2006 and 2010 an average of two children a week were killed by firearms, according to statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). During this period, 561 children under the age of 13 died as a result of gunfire.   read more

ICE agents are no longer allowed to issue detainer requests against unauthorized aliens arrested for minor misdemeanors like traffic offenses and other petty crimes, such as selling food out of one’s home or smoking in a non-smoking area. The new policy instructs agents to issue detainers only for those convicted or charged with a felony; those with three or more non-minor misdemeanor convictions; and those with serious misdemeanors.”   read more