Topic - ThinkProgress

MIAMI — On Friday, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) tried to use the Boston bombings to slow down the legislative push for immigration reform. Speaking during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s first hearing on a new bipartisan immigration proposal, Grassley said that “[g]iven the events of this week, it’s important to understand the gaps and loopholes” in [...]

MIAMI — At a conservative Latino conference where the mere mention of his name as a presidential candidate drew wild applause, former Governor Jeb Bush (R-FL) delivered a blistering critique of Republican outreach to racial minorities, calling the GOP a “reactionary party” bereft of ideas both for appealing to minority voters and for repairing the [...]

A 2010 study found “global warming is the main cause of a significant intensification in the North Atlantic Subtropical High that in recent decades has more than doubled the frequency of abnormally wet or dry summer weather in the southeastern United States.” Below, meteorologist Dr. Jeff Masters relates how wild climate swings are becoming the [...]

Opponents of the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2013 (CISPA) are challenging sponsor Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) to debate a 14-year-old about the merits of the proposal. The site, TheMikeRogersChallenge.com, was recently launched by Fight for the Future in response to Rogers’ claim that opponents of CISPA are 14-year-old “tweeters” in their [...]

As Minnesota legislators prepare to consider marriage equality legislation, the bill’s opponents have begun sending out mailers targeting undecided lawmakers. Heather Carlson, reporter for the Rochester Post-Bulletin, tweeted a Minnesota for Marriage mailer targeting state. Sen. Matt Schmit (DFL), suggesting that marriage equality would “erase moms and dads”: Gay “marriage” in Minnesota … it could [...]

Welcome to The Morning Pride, ThinkProgress LGBT’s daily round-up of the latest in LGBT policy, politics, and some culture too! Here’s what we’re reading this morning, but please let us know what stories you’re following as well. Follow us all day on Twitter at @TPEquality. - Today is the Day of Silence; students across the [...]

Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) joined 45 other senators in voting down a compromise amendment that would have required gun sellers at gun shows or online to conduct background checks with federally licensed gun dealers. The measure, supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans, has been touted by law enforcement officials and victims of gun violence, [...]

Flying in the face of the Western stereotypes about Buddhists, a highly popular monk in Myanmar is using his position to call for persecution of the country’s Muslims, going so far as to deem himself the “Burmese Bin Laden.” Wirathu is a 45-year old monk, dressing in traditional saffron-colored robes, living in a monastery in [...]

The Keystone XL Pipeline has been catapulted back in the spotlight of the House of Representatives this week, with Republicans continuing to waste taxpayer dollars rehashing who has the power to approve the project. Meanwhile, the State Department will be hosting a public hearing in Nebraska today to give residents a chance to comment on [...]

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) warned on Wednesday that President Obama could unilaterally legalize millions of undocumented immigrants if Congress does not pass a bipartisan immigration bill offered by the so-called Gang of 8. Appearing on the nationally syndicated “The Mark Levin Show” — one of many conservative talk radio interviews the senator is granting to [...]

The bridge is yours. -Shane Carruth on the ending of Upstream Color. -The unaired episodes of Don’t Trust The B—- In Apt. 23 will be online, thank goodness. -As someone without a functional sense of smell, the idea of scent-enhanced screenings of movies does pretty much nothing for me. -Game of Thrones could have had [...]

Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey said on Wednesday that he is more reluctant to support arming Syria’s rebels than he had been previously, saying that the situation in Syria is “more confusing on the opposition side today than it was six months ago.” Back in February, Dempsey said that he had supported [...]

Tens of thousands of Tennessee Walking Horses are born in the United States each year, many of which are destined to perform a crazy-looking walk called “the Big Lick” in one of many famous shows. But trainers today beat, burn, whip, and electrify horses to make them act this way — and federal law will [...]

Normal people who screw up at work or in their personal lives – be it an ethical transgression, general selfishness, or other direct failure – expect to be fired, cut off socially, or face other serious consequences that alter their lives. But politicians (and other rich and famous people more broadly) always seem to get [...]

Latepass on this one on a day full of screeners. But I really, really love that the new trailer for Man of Steel presents Superman as a story that Lois Lane is tracking down: I’m not super-crazy about her giving Clark Kent his nom de guerre. But I really appreciate her being the audience surrogate, [...]

The Senate voted down an amendment offered by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) to expand background checks for gun purchases at gun shows and online, in a vote of 54-46. The measure needed 60 votes to be included in the underlining bill. As Vice President Joe Biden called the finally tally, Tucson [...]

A West Virginia high school student is filing an injunction against her principal, who she claims is threatening to punish her for speaking out against an factually inaccurate abstinence assembly at her school. Katelyn Campbell, who is the student body vice president at George Washington High School, alleges her principal threatened to call the college [...]

ExxonMobil’s recent oil spill dumped some 200,000 gallons into Mayflower, Arkansas, killed wildlife, and caused 22 homes to be evacuated. As the Natural Resources committee takes up another bill to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) argued at a hearing that the spill is more evidence the Keystone XL pipeline is a [...]

The bridge is yours. -Wedding shoots that make me hate wedding dresses slightly less. -Always love seeing people make lemonade out of the Westboro Baptist Church. -Hollywood produces violent movies because they are profitable for both studios and theater owners, if that’s what you mean by “cool.” -How Pixar predicted the future. -Jon Hamm explains [...]

At a social conservative conference this week, Iowa’s Secretary of State argued that Republicans need to pass voter ID in order to advance their top policy goals, including banning abortion and same-sex marriage. Matt Schultz (R), elected in the Tea Party wave of 2010, spoke at length about his support for implementing voter ID in [...]

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) became emotional on the Senate floor Wednesday as he urged senators to support a gun safety bill that, in part, expands background checks to individuals who purchase guns at gun shows or online. The Senate will consider at least nine amendments to the measure on Wednesday afternoon, including provisions [...]

This week, South Africa and Norway cohosted the International Conference on Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in Oslo, which was designed to follow through on the United Nations’ resolution to support LGBT human rights. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon submitted a video message to the conference, pointing out that culture, tradition, and religion cannot [...]

Today the New Zealand Parliament voted 77-44 to approve marriage equality in its final reading, making it the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to do so. This marks the first time a marriage equality law explicitly defines protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity — rescinding requirements that trans people divorce before they [...]

The Senate will consider amendments to comprehensive gun safety bill on Wednesday, but Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) — a co-sponsor of a bipartisan measure to expand background checks to gun shows and online sales — is telling reporters that the provision is unlikely to attract the 60 votes it needs for passage. From NBC’s Kelly [...]

A new bipartisan report released on Tuesday by the Constitution Project condemned force-feeding terror detainees that are engaged in hunger strikes. The issue came to the forefront on Monday after the New York Times published an op-ed by an inmate at the Guantanamo Bay prison detailing the hunger strike he and other inmates have undergone [...]

In the debate over government spending, the central data point wielded by fans of austerity is the claim that once a country reaches a debt load over 90 percent of its economy — a threshold the United States is approaching — economic growth goes into a tailspin. That argument came from a 2010 study by [...]

We’ve written extensively about how how arctic ice loss is driving extreme weather. Jennifer A. Francis of Rutgers University’s Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences has been at the forefront of this research. She appears in many videos explaining the connection between climate change and extreme weather (see recent 40 minute video here). Here’s a short [...]

In the first quarter of 2013, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II (R) raised about $2.4 million for his gubernatorial campaign. Of that, a huge portion came from oil and gas interests — likely impressed by his long record of active climate denial. A ThinkProgress review of data from the Virginia Public Access Project reveals [...]

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) in a speech on the Senate floor on Tuesday commemorating the Boston Marathon attacks said that some Americans have become complacent about terrorism in such a way that is reminiscent to the time before the 9/11 attacks: MCCONNELL: On 9/11 we forever disabused of the notion that attacks, like [...]

by Emily Southard, Campaign Manager for Forecast the Facts Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT) has doubled down on his climate change denial in response to pressure from constituents and the local media. In a Salt Lake Tribune op-ed this Saturday, the newly appointed chair of a key climate science committee delivered a litany of climate denial [...]

Six years ago, Virginia Tech University went down in history as the site of the deadliest school shooting to ever occur in the US. Seung-Hui Choi, a 23-year-old English major, gunned down 56 people and killed 32. Choi had been declared “an imminent danger to self or others as a result of mental illness” by [...]

The horror that was the aftermath of the explosions at the end of the Boston Marathon on Monday drew forth some of the best of people. With three dead and more than 100 wounded, dozens of citizens comforted and aided the injured, thousands more offered up their homes to stranded marathon runners. Such national tragedies [...]

As a sports lover and as a Bostonian, I’m devastated to hear of the explosions near the finish line of the Boston Marathon that appears to have, at minmum, severely injured a number of the runners. My colleagues at ThinkProgress will be covering the details of the explosion on the home page as we hear [...]

Two bombs — in two different locations — detonated next to the Boston Marathon finish line this afternoon, about three hours after the winners crossed the line. Google has established a person finder for the incident here. The Boston Police Department estimates that two explosions occurred at around 2:50 PM and a third incident occurred [...]

This Friday (4/19) is the annual Day of Silence (DoS), when students across the country choose not speak in school in protest of the mistreatment of LGBT youth. While some conservative groups are once again encouraging parents to keep their kids home, Focus on the Family and the Alliance Defending Freedom are hosting their annual [...]

I’ve been generally bullish on Zack Snyder’s forthcoming Superman reboot, Man of Steel, or as I’ve been jokingly calling it given the long shots of waves and broody atmosphere of the trailers, Terrence Malick’s Superman. So I was excited to see this latest trailer in the form of a calmly-voiced demand from General Zod (Michael [...]

In a surprise move, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms announced their support for the Senate’s bipartisan bill to expand background checks on gun sales online and at gun shows. CCRKBA calls itself the second largest gun group after the NRA, which is actively campaigning against the legislation. Despite the [...]

Welcome to The Morning Pride, ThinkProgress LGBT’s daily round-up of the latest in LGBT policy, politics, and some culture too! Here’s what we’re reading this morning, but please let us know what stories you’re following as well. Follow us all day on Twitter at @TPEquality. - A federal judge in Texas has denied asylum to a [...]

Scott Brown, the Republican who served for two years as a Massachusetts senator, told Fox News Sunday he hasn’t ruled out retooling his senate ambitions to focus on the seat from the neighboring state of New Hampshire. Brown originally won the Massachusetts seat held by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) in a 2010 special election after [...]

On Sunday, the two senators at the helm of the push for stronger gun laws appeared together on CNN’s State Of The Union, where they gave an impassioned call for action on gun laws and brushed off the idea that it was a political risk to focus on gun legislation. Sens. Pat Toomey (R-PA) and [...]

The New Yorker examines the President’s latest budget and find it “represents a major dodge on climate change.” Hence columnist Ryan Lizza poses the headline question, “Has Obama already given up on climate change?” Sure Obama has been talking a good game on climate in the second inaugural address and State of the Union: But [...]

Is there a literary trope that draws more universal ire than the spoiled brat? There can’t be a single person on the face of the planet who empathizes with the likes of Eric Cartman, Wonka golden ticket holder Veruca Salt, or any of the charming young heroines of MTV’s twisted reality show, “My Super Sweet [...]

For years, Republicans have delayed a vote on the Paycheck Fairness Act, legislation that would strengthen penalties against employers who discriminate against women in pay and give women greater opportunity to find out whether they have been discriminated against. But on Thursday, House Democrats announced they were creating a “petition to discharge,” which, if it [...]

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) battled Fox News host Rick Folbaum over the bipartisan Senate proposal to expand background checks to firearms purchased at gun shows and online on Friday, feverishly debunking the network’s claims that the measure will lead to a national gun registry or infringe on the constitutional rights of gun owners. Asking questions [...]

Welcome to The Morning Pride, ThinkProgress LGBT’s daily round-up of the latest in LGBT policy, politics, and some culture too! Here’s what we’re reading this morning, but please let us know what stories you’re following as well. Follow us all day on Twitter at @TPEquality. - A Nevada Senate committee has advanced a bill to [...]

Today, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held its confirmation hearing for Gina McCarthy, who was nominated by President Obama to be our next Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator. During the hearing, one of her chief inquisitors was Senator John Barrasso (R-WY), who is one of three doctors in the United States Senate and [...]

On Thursday, State Rep. Stacey Campfield (R-TN) withdrew his widely criticized bill to reduce welfare assistance for needy families if their children did not perform well in school. The state Senate would have voted on the measure this afternoon, but Campfield pulled the bill after his Republican colleagues refused to support it. Many children’s advocacy [...]

Republicans tried and failed to pin anything on Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, Gina McCarthy. When she appeared before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee as President Obama’s nominee to be the next EPA Administrator, some Senators focused on substance, and others focused on denying climate change or asking about [...]

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) embarrassed government regulators during a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Thursday morning as she demanded to know why they won’t reveal how frequently big banks illegally foreclosed on homeowners. In January, regulators abandoned a case-by-case review of foreclosure fraud conducted by some of the nation’s largest banks in favor of a [...]