In November, Mauritius’ ambassador to the U.S., Somduth Soborun (pictured, right), pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of failing to pay his domestic worker the federal minimum wage ($7.25 an hour). Authorities said the worker, a Filipina national whom they identified only as C.V., came to the U.S. on a visa to work for Soborun, […]

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Outrage over the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre may or may not spur any meaningful gun control laws, but you can bet your Crayolas that it will lead to more seven-year-olds getting handcuffed and hauled away to local police precincts. You read that right. Americans may disagree deeply about how easy it should be for […]

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“There can be no doubt that torture is illegal. There are no wartime exceptions for torture, nor is there an exception for prisoners or ‘enemy combatants,’ nor is there an exception for ‘enhanced methods,’” lawyer/journalist Scott Horton wrote in Harper’s in 2008. Prohibition of torture is jus cogens (compelling law), a principle of international law […]

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Reviewed: The Age of Austerity: How Scarcity Will Remake American Politics by Thomas Byrne Edsall (Anchor Books, 272 pp., $15.95). The New Year’s Day bill that Congress finally passed to avert the “fiscal cliff” prevented a rise in income taxes for most American families, and put off drastic cuts in the federal budget for two months. […]

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Immediately after Barack Hussein Obama won a second national election, there were murmurs on the right about adapting to new political realities. The blustery coalition of conservative Christians, emissaries from the Old South, and the Chamber of Commerce that has blocked progressive change since the end of the last century now confronts its endgame. Yet […]

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