“The president’s lawyers asked a judge Friday to extend key deadlines on the multibillion lawsuit against his presidential administration, but hidden within the pages of the legal filing was a profound detail: that the president has been in talks with his own government staffers to ‘avoid protracted litigation,'” The New Republic reports.
Publisher’s Picks: Our Favorite Stories Of 2012
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2012 was definitely an election year of epic proportions, a watershed moment in history that no one alive will soon forget. But 2012 was also a year filled with amazing, terrifying, fantastic, terrible, wonderful, heart-warming, and heart-breaking incredible stories.
As publisher of The New Civil Rights Movement, one of my greatest satisfactions is sharing beautifully told tales that help people see the world just a little differently.
Sadly, many of those stories often get upstaged by events that are more “exciting,” or more scandalous, or shorter, or just more appealing to the lowest common denominator — and thus get more reads.
I love a well-told tale, news-you-can-use that’s as well-written as it is informative, op-eds that are meaningful, masterful, and take your breath away.
We all have stories we meant to read, wanted to read, bookmarked to read, later, but forgot.
So, today I bring you some of my favorite 2012 stories from some of our amazing writers — favorite because they’re well-written, impassioned, important, under-reported, and, or, well, really deserve your attention. These aren’t news stories as much as they’re just good stories. I looked through all the opinion and op-ed pieces our team wrote this year, and culled not the most popular stories but the very best tales. The list was long, but I wanted to ensure we shared at least these with you again.
I hope you’ll take a moment to read them all, check out the authors’ other works, and share them with your friends, family, social media followers, co-workers, and neighbors.
And remember to read:
2012 In Review: Obama Coalition Enshrines Liberals As America’s New Moral Majority
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Publisher’s Picks: Our Favorite Stories Of 2012
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Law, Unwrapped: Gay Marriage – Why Chris Christie Is Wrong On All Counts: NJ Governor Chris Christie’s desire to put marriage equality to a vote of the people is wrong. Civil unions are not equality. Only marriage can offer equality.
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The GOP War On Women Demands A New Women’s Rights Agenda for America: “Feminism†with a capital “F†is making a roaring comeback, thanks to the GOP War On Women: misogyny on steroids. It’s time we demand a new women’s rights agenda.
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On Our Radar – The Straight Spouse Network: The Straight Spouse Network helps you when your wife tells you over breakfast that she is in love with another woman, and she is moving her in and you out.
Mother’s Day On Our Radar – Lesbian Supermoms Take On Family Equality: If their names were Ward & June, every right-wing “pro-family†group would be holding them up as an icon of family values. But their names are Jayne and April.
On Our Radar – Everyday People Fighting Everyday Bullies: Despite “Don’t Say Gay†bills or schools refusing Gay-Straight Alliances, across the US hopeful things are happening –everyday people are fighting everyday bullies. (With video)
On Our Radar – The Oxymorons Of The North Carolina Republican Party: The North Carolina Republican Party introduced a noteworthy new phrase into the Tea Party lexicon. “Sexual orientation is not an appropriate category.â€
Father’s Day On Our Radar – Two Dads Say Thank You For The Gift Of Sons: A young unmarried mother in Vietnam gave Bob Page and Dale Frederiksen a chance to be fathers. Nine years later they gave her a new life in return. This Fathers Day, the generosity of the human heart is On Our Radar.
On Our Radar – The Romney Millions And The Damage They Have Done: Mitt and Ann Romney have decided they deserve adulation for giving ten percent of their wealth to the Mormon Church – one of the major funders of Prop 8. Today, the LGBT discrimination enabled by the Romney money is On Our Radar.
On Our Radar – The Crucible of Chris Armstrong: This week, a jury awarded out, gay University of Michigan graduate Chris Armstrong 4.5 million dollars after Andrew Shirvell, a former Assistant Michigan Attorney General, stalked and tormented him. Today Chris Armstrong, who showed remarkable grace under pressure, is On Our Radar.
On Our Radar – The “Health Of The Mother†And The War On Women: The Romney campaign announced last week that Mitt was mistaken when he said he believed in a “health of the mother†abortion exception.†What “health of the mother†really means to women is On Our Radar.
On Our Radar – Abstinence Only Sex Education, The American Version Of The Taliban: In Pakistan, the Taliban tries to keep girls uneducated and sexually repressed with beatings and bullets. In America, congress does the same thing with money. Today, abstinence only sex education and the lives it destroys are On Our Radar.
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Yes, It Is Time For That Conversation: This is the time for that conversation. Let’s try regulating guns with the same fervor we do women’s bodies and protect our children with the same ferocity we do fetuses.
Susan G. Komen and the Cancer Within: Susan G. Komen for the Cure, in the wake of its decision to defund Planned Parenthood ended up subjecting itself to harsh scrutiny from which it can’t run nor hide.
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Proud Americans, Be Who You Are: From Paul Ryan to Michelle Obama, and every American in between, it’s time for “us vs. them†to stop so we can be we. Equally.
An American Mourning: A Remembrance of Emmett Till, Rodney King And Trayvon Martin:Â Emmett Till, murdered fifty-seven years ago on this day, August 28th, in 1955. His death was a crucial turning point for the Civil Rights movement in America.
Whitney: Sister Can’t Fly On One Wing: Perhaps the drugs were Whitney Houston’s “black†scream, the expression of her rage at the dichotomy between the truth of her life and what we were watching onstage.
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Is This Really Just ‘Mainstream Christian Advocacy’?: Washington Post’s Dana Milbank describes the Family Research Council as “a mainstream conservative think tank,†“driven by deeply held religious beliefs.†Really?
Â
Christian Pastors Partying Like It’s 538-332 BC: Every pastor preaching genocide must be met with 100 preaching love and acceptance. Christians must adapt their dogma for today, or fully embrace the Bible’s hatred.
God Hates Fags Is The Heart Of The Religious Right: From Tony Perkins to Bryan Fischer to Rick Santorum to Rick Perry to Stacey Campfield, “God hates fags†– the concept – is at the very heart and soul of the Religious Right.
Rick Santorum, The New President Of Jesus:Â Evangelical Christians have found the new president of Jesus, Rick Santorum, a man terrified of the future, who would destroy the very lives of LGBT Americans.
The Ballad Of John Edwards:Â If John Edwards were a character in a movie about the rise and fall of a politician from South Carolina the actor they would hire would look just like John Edwards.
Â
Reflections On Romney: Why Being ‘A Bully’ Is No Laughing Matter: In the wake of revelations that Mitt Romney was a high school gay bashing bully, we learn that bullies are often viewed “as some of the coolest kids at school.â€
Â
You’ve Probably Never Even Heard Of The Homeless World Cup — Here’s Why You Should: The 10th Annual Homeless World Cup, a soccer tournament played by homeless and socially-disadvantaged people, attracted over 50,000 spectators its opening weekend.
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Spilled Milk: Tea and Coco: I’m sure there are many people who’d rush to call me a bad parent for taking my daughter to tea with a drag queen. I’d say they’re wrong. I think every kid in America could benefit from an afternoon with Miss Coco Peru.
Spilled Milk: Strangers On A Train:Â Did you know September was Grandparents Month? Neither did I. God will smite you, as he does nonobservant Jews and sex fetish bloggers. Unless you do something about it, pronto.
Â
Can We Trust Christians? A Question For LGBT People And Straight Allies:Â Homophobic Christianity is rampant but there are over 5,000 congregations in the U.S. that have declared their unequivocal affirmation of LGBT equality.
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LGBT Images In Art: The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name Just Won’t Shut Up!: Four states have major exhibitions at notable museums which focus on works of art that are explicitly or implicitly depictions of LGBTQ subjects or iconography.
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Images, top, by DonkeyHotey
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President Donald Trump is now in “discussions” with his own government to settle his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service, a federal agency he exercises limited influence over, after a contractor released 15 years of his tax returns in 2019, which were published by The New York Times two months before the 2020 election.
“Good cause exists to grant an extension in this matter while the Parties engage in discussions designed to resolve this matter and to avoid protracted litigation,” Trump’s lawyers argued, TNR notes. “This limited pause will neither prejudice the Parties nor delay ultimate resolution. Rather, the extension will promote judicial economy and allow the Parties to explore avenues that could narrow or resolve the issues efficiently.”
TNR also repots that legal experts “have questioned whether a president can sue his own administration to pocket taxpayer money, and have expressed doubts about whether Trump’s Justice Department can appropriately defend the financial institutions.”
Critics allege a conflict of interest in the case.
READ MORE: ‘Incurable Conflict of Interest’: Kushner Under Sweeping Investigation by House Democrats
“Right out in the open, Donald Trump is suing his own IRS to try to steal $10 BILLION taxpayer dollars,” charged U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who notes she has introduced legislation to prevent “this theft.”
Political scientist Brendan Nyhan described the situation as Trump “Negotiating with himself to loot the US Treasury.”
“Nothing beats reaching into the taxpayers’ pocket and helping oneself to $10 billion,” wrote Richard Field, the Director of the Institute for Financial Transparency.
“Trump is suing the federal government and cashing in. Who approves these settlements? HE DOES of course. There is no bottom to his shamelessness. Meanwhile American families suffer,” wrote U.S. Rep. Darren Soto (D-FL).
“Trump is just stealing $10 billion from taxpayers! That’s very MAGA,” charged Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
READ MORE: Conservative Christian Broadcaster Slams Franklin Graham’s ‘Embarrassing’ Defense of Trump
Image via Reuters
MAGA has made a deal with Donald Trump, and the deal is that “the humiliation is the point,” argues Republican former U.S. Congressman Adam Kinzinger. In short, he says, “humiliating the MAGA faithful only binds them more tightly to Trump.”
Kinzinger, a never-Trump Republican who acknowledged last year that his politics are now probably closer to the Democrats, says that to “understand what Trump is doing, you have to stop thinking about each outrage as a separate event and start seeing them as a sequence.”
He walks through a timeline of humiliations.
Trump asked MAGA to believe the 2020 election was stolen, so they did, “including many who knew better.”
Trump asked MAGA to excuse the January 6 attack on the Capitol as a mere tourist visit, and they did.
“He asked them to accept that his 91 criminal indictments were a political witch hunt — and they did, turning his mugshot into a fundraising image,” he writes. “Each ask was larger than the last. Each capitulation required more of them — more willingness to contradict their own eyes, their own values, their own stated beliefs.”
READ MORE: ‘Incurable Conflict of Interest’: Kushner Under Sweeping Investigation by House Democrats
Kinzinger reveals the psychology of what he believes is actually happening here.
“Every time MAGA accepts something they previously would have considered unacceptable, Trump’s hold on them gets stronger, not weaker. Because now they’ve paid a price. They’ve told their neighbors, their families, their coworkers, that they believe this. Walking it back would mean admitting they were wrong. And the movement doesn’t allow that.”
What does this mean for the future?
“Don’t expect a wholesale collapse in Trump’s support,” he predicts. “Some will leave, others have tied their conscience to his success. Those will double down, again and again.”
Kinzinger expects that MAGA is not breaking apart. “I don’t think there’s some dramatic rupture coming where the movement looks in the mirror and decides enough is enough. That’s not how this works,” he writes. Because Trump has trained his movement to accept humiliation as “proof of loyalty.”
“The more outrageous the thing he asks them to believe, the more committed they become,” he explains, “because disbelief now would mean admitting everything they’ve already accepted was wrong. It’s a trap that gets harder to escape the longer you’re in it.”
But, he says, “the humiliation ritual works until the day it doesn’t.”
“Until the day enough people decide that the price of belonging is higher than the price of leaving. We’re not there yet,” he explains. “But we’re closer than Trump wants you to think.”
READ MORE: Conservative Christian Broadcaster Slams Franklin Graham’s ‘Embarrassing’ Defense of Trump
Image via Reuters
The Trump regime has an “erratic” and “theologically incomprehensible” preferred religion, a “bellicose, nationalist Christianity,” that is organized along various “fiefdoms,” argues Sarah Posner at Talking Points Memo. Those spheres of control and influence are “aimed at protecting, and even justifying, the regime’s impunity.”
Posner writes that the “goal of the Christian nationalist project is to subvert democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.”
She posits that during Trump’s second term, the White House and federal agencies “have been bludgeoning federal employees, the press, and the public with religious pronouncements of moral superiority to perceived enemies.”
On Easter Sunday, several administration agencies posted social media messages “heralding Christ’s resurrection,” the Associated Press reported.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote: “The tomb is empty. The promise is fulfilled. Through His sacrifice, we are redeemed. We stand firm in faith, courage, and truth.”
READ MORE: ‘Incurable Conflict of Interest’: Kushner Under Sweeping Investigation by House Democrats
“He is risen,” was the message from both the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department.
The Department of Justice went even further.
“Today, as millions of Christians gather in their churches across the nation to celebrate the resurrection of Christ, this Department —- is proud to protect and defend religious liberty,” the message read.
Posner argues how various administration officials use religion.
JD Vance “starts fights with the pope over his anti-war statements (even as Vance leaks to the press, with an eye to 2028, that he was against the war).”
Through his prayer meetings and press conferences, Secretary Hegseth “aims to compel Americans to embrace his Christian nationalist bloodlust and war crimes, and this week compared reporters to Pharisees for insufficiently cheerleading for the military.”
Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer “has promoted her Catholicism in prayer meetings modeled on the ones Hegseth hosts at the Pentagon.”
“All these moves,” Posner writes, “are designed to crush dissent, marginalize other Christianities and religions, and empower government officials to violate the law. The fiefdoms, in different ways, prop up the would-be king’s corruption, and that of his allies.”
READ MORE: Conservative Christian Broadcaster Slams Franklin Graham’s ‘Embarrassing’ Defense of Trump
Image via Reuters
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