Hobby Lobby's Hypocrisy, Part 2: Its Retirement Plan STILL Invests in Contraception Manufacturers

When Obamacare compelled Hobby Lobby to buy employee health insurance plans that covered emergency contraception, the Green family, who own the national chain of craft stores, fought the law all the way to the Supreme Court. So what happened when Mother Jones reported that Hobby Lobby contributed millions of dollars to employee retirement plans with stock in companies that make emergency contraception?

Stephen Harper intervenes in purchase of new missiles: Source

Prime Minister Stephen Harper settled a dispute between Treasury Board and the Defence Department to approve an $800-million, sole-source purchase of next-generation Sea Sparrow missiles for the Royal Canadian Navy’s aging frigates, sources familiar with the situation say.

The decision was taken early this week following a written request earlier this month by three ministers — Industry Minister James Moore, Defence Minister Rob Nicholson and Public Works Minister Diane Finley — that won out over the objections of Treasury Board president Tony Clement, sources say.

Meet the Alabama Judge Who Figured Out How to Unravel Roe v. Wade

ProPublica profiles Alabama Supreme Court Justice Tom Parker, whose “rulings over the last nine years have fueled the biggest threat to abortion rights in a generation.”

Parker is a religious man, who, in 2005, said, “The very God of Holy Scriptures, the Creator, is the source of law, life, and liberty.”

‘An Awfully Expensive Hammer to Hit a Couple of Cheap Nails’

“Last Saturday’s strikes” against Islamic “are indicative of a key complexity of the U.S.-led campaign in Iraq and Syria,” Foreign Policy’s Justine Drennan writes at Stars and Stripes. “In throwing its hugely expensive 21st-century weaponry at a band of insurgents, the Pentagon is using planes that can cost nearly $200 million apiece against pickup trucks costing virtually pennies in comparison.”

The Merger of ISIS and al-Qaeda Could Cripple the Civilized World

As ISIS continues to advance on the Syrian town of Kobani and close in on Turkey’s border, experts in Islamic radical movements think the terror group may merge with its al-Qaeda mother organization soon. Together, the group would represent the greatest terror threat to the civilized world.

“I think Britain, Germany and France will witness significant attacks in their territories by the Islamic State. Al-Baghdadi [the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, otherwise known as ISIS] may reconcile with al-Zawhiri [the leader of the al-Qaeda central organization] to fight the crusader enemy. The attacks by the United States and her allies will unite the two groups,” said Hisham al-Hashimi, an Iraqi researcher who just finished writing a book about ISIS based on his unique access to the organization’s documents and years of research and advising Iraqi security forces.

Voter Suppression Backfires in Texas and Wisconsin

It’s been a bad week for voter ID laws.

On Wednesday, the Government Accountability Office released a comprehensive study showing that strict voter ID laws in Kansas and Tennessee decreased voter turnout by two to three points from 2008 to 2012 compared to similar states without voter ID laws, leading to 122,000 fewer votes.

Last night, a federal district court struck down Texas’s voter ID law, the strictest in the country, calling it “an unconstitutional poll tax.”

Deadly Force, In Black And White

Young black males in recent years were at a far greater risk of being shot dead by police than their white counterparts – 21 times greater i, according to a ProPublica analysis of federally collected data on fatal police shootings.

The 1,217 deadly police shootings from 2010 to 2012 captured in the federal data show that blacks, age 15 to 19, were killed at a rate of 31.i7 per million, while just 1.47 per million white males in that age range died at the hands of police.

Hong Kong Protesters Regroup

HONG KONG, Oct 10 (Reuters) - Thousands of protesters regrouped in central Hong Kong on Friday to push their demand for democracy, a day after the government called off talks with students amid a two-week standoff that has shaken communist China's capitalist hub.

The political crisis has seen tens of thousands take to the city streets to push for free elections and seek the resignation of Hong Kong leader Leung Chun-ying.

At Least A Third Of All Women Murdered In The U.S. Are Killed By Male Partners

It's a sobering fact. At least one third of all female homicide victims in the U.S. are killed by male intimate partners -- husbands and ex-husbands, boyfriends and estranged lovers. While both men and women experience domestic violence, the graphics below should put to rest the myth that abuse occurs equally to both sexes.

 

The States Where Women Are Most Likely to Be Killed By Men

Every year, the Violence Policy Center tracks which states have the highest rate of incidents in which one man kills one woman, a typical indicator of domestic homicide. The Huffington Post crunched the data to find the worst offenders over the past decade. Between 2003 and 2012, Nevada had the highest rate, at 2.447 women killed per 100,000. In 2012, however, the most recent year for which data is available, Nevada's rate dropped to 1.83, and Alaska took the top spot with 2.57 women killed per 100,000. 

Over 18,000 Women Were Killed By Men Since 2003

Since the landmark Violence Against Women Act was passed in 1994, annual rates of domestic violence have plummeted by 64 percent. But still today, an average of three women are killed every day. More often than not, women are shot. Over half of all women killed by intimate partners between 2001 to 2012 were killed using a gun. 

Note: In 2012, as in years past, the state of Florida did not submit any data to the FBI Supplementary Homicide Report. In 2012 and 2011, data from Alabama was not available from the FBI. Data from Florida and Alabama was not requested individually because the difference in collection techniques would create a bias in the study results. In addition, according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, limited SHR data was received from Illinois for 2009-2012.

Sources: Violence Policy Center, Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Institute of Justice, Center for American Progress

Infographic by Alissa Scheller for The Huffington Post.

Original Article
Source: huffingtonpost.com/
Author: The Huffington Post | By Melissa Jeltsen & Alissa Scheller

This Is Scott Walker's Idea Of A Living Wage

WASHINGTON -- Linda Branch, a 50-year-old personal care worker in Milwaukee, works 20 hours a week making $11 an hour, or around $400 every two weeks. That's barely enough to make her rent, she told the state's Department of Workforce Development in a recent filing. She added that she recently had to borrow money to keep her electricity running, and that she could not afford to send her grandson, whom she raises, to his recent homecoming dance.

"I was not providing him with a proper childhood because I cannot afford to," Branch said in her statement.