- Today’s comic by Tom Tomorrow is The gun:
- What you missed on Sunday Kos …
- Goldilocks Old Party: Making the laws just right, by Mark Sumner
- Should it be unfettered capitalism for the masses or real free enterprise?, by Egberto Willies
- Hillary Clinton and a left flank: How a Clinton presidency could redefine progressive governance, by Armando
- Black History is American history: Books you should read, by Denise Oliver Velez
- Race and murder in America from the time of Jefferson Davis to Jordan Davis, by Ian Reifowitz
- The disrespectful silence of Clarence Thomas: Not one question in eight years:
As for Thomas, he is physically transformed from his infamous confirmation hearings, in 1991—a great deal grayer and heavier today, at the age of sixty-five. He also projects a different kind of silence than he did earlier in his tenure. In his first years on the Court, Thomas would rock forward, whisper comments about the lawyers to his neighbors Breyer and Kennedy, and generally look like he was acknowledging where he was. These days, Thomas only reclines; his leather chair is pitched so that he can stare at the ceiling, which he does at length. He strokes his chin. His eyelids look heavy. Every schoolteacher knows this look. It’s called “not paying attention.”
- Eric Cantor: cheerleader for perpetual war:
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor gave a speech last week at the Virginia Military Institute that left little doubt about his foreign-policy agenda: more wars of choice.
Rob Golan-Villela of The National Interest is right: “Cantor’s FP speech is basically a mashup of every hawkish cliche and bit of threat inflation you’ve ever heard.” Cantor gives no hint of having learned anything from the mistakes of the aughts, and taking his advice would come at great cost in American blood and treasure.
- Oldest known Holocaust survivor dies at 100: Alice Herz-Sommer, thought to be the oldest survivor of the Holocaust, died in London on Sunday morning at the age of 110. A book of her memories, A Century of Wisdom, by Caroline Stoessinger, with a foreward by Vaclav Havel, was published in 2012. She was born in 1903 in Prague to a family of intellectuals and musicians. As a child, she spent weekends and holidays in the company of Franz Kafka, whom she knew as “Uncle Franz.” Gustav Mahler, Sigmund Freud and Rainer Maria Rilke were friends of her mother. In 1943, she and her family were transported to the concentration camp at Theresienstadt where her mother, husband and friends were murdered by the Nazis. After the war, she moved with her son to Israel. Golda Meir attended her house concerts, as did Arthur Rubinstein, Leonard Bernstein and Isaac Stern. As recently as two years ago, in her London home, she still practiced piano for hours every day.
- Wisconsin supreme court justices will decide on criminal probe of their own campaign donors:
A criminal probe in Wisconsin targets several major spenders on state supreme court races. Yet the justices who benefited from that spending will likely get to decide whether this probe moves forward.
Wisconsin prosecutors have been conducting a 2011-2012 campaign finance investigation targeting Republican candidates in the 2011 and 2012 recall elections and interest groups that spent money to support them. Though some targets of the investigation have not been publicly named, two business groups and a former aide to Gov. Scott Walker (R) have been named as targets.
- Houston Chronicle uncovers scandalous government inattention in oil-field safety:
The boom that has brought prosperity to Texas has left a trail of death and devastation for many of the more than 100,000 workers in oil and gas exploration-related jobs. The death toll peaked at 65 in 2012—a 10-year high and 50 percent more than in 2011. Nationwide, 663 workers in oil field-related industries were reported killed in the drilling and fracking boom from 2007 to 2012, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. About 40 percent died in Texas.[...]
The federal government has failed for 22 years to implement safety standards and procedures for onshore oil and gas drilling, even as offshore accidents such as the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico prompted officials to improve already stringent regulations governing offshore drilling.
Of those accidents the Occupational Safety and Health Adminstration did investigate, 78 percent were found to involve safety violations.
- Oldest French outpost in North America was in what is now Georgia, not Florida?
In an announcement that could rewrite the book on early colonization of the New World, two researchers today said they have proposed a location for the oldest fortified settlement ever found in North America. Speaking at an international conference on France at Florida State University, the pair announced that they have proposed a new location for Fort Caroline, a long-sought fort built by the French in 1564.
“This is the oldest fortified settlement in the present United States,” said Florida State University alumnus and historian Fletcher Crowe. “This fort is older than St. Augustine, considered to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in America. It’s older than the Lost Colony of Virginia by 21 years; older than the 1607 fort of Jamestown by 45 years; and predates the landing of the Pilgrims in Massachusetts in 1620 by 56 years.”
Not everybody agrees. Especially the people, including other scholars, who say the fort was established at present-day Jacksonville, Florida.
- On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, Greg Dworkin rounds up the weekend’s world events, health care pricing, the minimum wage fight, and different social media platforms affect news story reactions. Changes at Heritage. How procedure can drive politics.
Midday open thread: Feds lackadaisical about oil-field safety, oldest Holocaust survivor dead at 110
