R.I.P. Dennis Hopper

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Don't invade Kagan's privacy
Elena Kagan is a legal scholar and advocate, not a gay-baiting politician. Her sexuality should not be an issue
By Joe Conason

Singer, actress Lena Horne dies at 92
The first black performer to be signed to a long-term contract by a major Hollywood studio, she went on to achieve international fame as a singer.

Will We Keep Hating the Government?
By E.J. Dionne —
Ever heard the one about the guy who hated government until a deregulated Wall Street crashed, an oil spill devastated the Gulf of Mexico, a coal mine collapsed, and some good police work stopped a terrorist attack?

What We Learned From Times Square
By Joe Conason —
Within hours after the car bomb fizzled in Times Square, the nonstop noise resumed on Fox News and talk radio, warning that the Barack Obama administration is failing to protect us.
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The Reaction by Michael J. W. Sticklings

By the way, if you'll indulge me, this has been quite a week for Republican craziness. Over at my blog, The Reaction, we frequently hand out "Craziest Republican/Conservative of the Day" awards. Here are several from the past few days:

-- Duncan Hunter (for saying American citizens who are the children of illegal immigrants should be deported);

-- Pat Bertroche (for saying that illegal immigrants should be microchipped);

-- Kristia Cavere (for saying that it was Republicans who liberated Europe during WWII); and

-- Leo Berman (for saying that Obama is "God's punishment on us").

This is the new normal in the GOP, which now, with few exceptions, occupies a narrow ideological sliver on the right. It's a party of draconian anti-immigrant laws in Arizona and draconian anti-abortion laws in Oklahoma (and Arizona as well). It's a party that feeds off anger, fear, and ignorance, a party to which deporting American citizens actually seems like a great idea. It's a party that idolizes Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck.

Hopefully voters will remember this in November.

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How Wall Street Creates Socialists
By E.J. Dionne
No leftist polemicist could come up with as damning a description of contemporary capitalism as the contents of an e-mail that Goldman’s Fabrice “Fabulous Fab” Tourre sent to his girlfriend.

It Takes Power to Control Power
By Joe Conason
Discredited as the financial powers are, their wealth alone continues to provide them with wildly disproportionate influence over the political process.

Boycotting Arizona’s Racism
By Amy Goodman
Arizona was the only territory west of Texas to secede from the Union and join the Confederacy during the Civil War. A century later, it fought recognition of the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday. This week, an anti-immigrant bill was signed into law.
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