“He talks about targeting priorities. He says the president is of course the top target if you could get a shot at him. Also the military chiefs like the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the defense secretary, top military people. There is a note indicating that the vice president is not an important target because that position has less weight.” [ProPublica]

Jan Brewer may not have the stomach for Circumcision Certificates, but she just signed a bill that allows patriotic citizens to escape the tyranny of homeowner associations:

Current law overrides any [association] rules when it comes to the U.S. flag, the flags of any branch of the military, the state flag, the POW-MIA flag and the flag of any Indian nation. The new law will add the Gadsden flag to that protected list, that yellow flag with the drawing of a coiled rattlesnake and the phrase “Don’t Tread on Me.”

That yellow teabagger flag, to be precise.

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JNOV put a link to this video in comments – as if I needed something else to push me over the emotional edge on this anniversary:

When Pete Seeger goes, if he goes before I do, I will fall apart. He is a treasure.

This is what it looks like:

Today is the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. It was an important event in the rise of the modern American labor movement.

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“An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to the new Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny as a female. Enda Kenny is a male.” [NYT, via Weigel]

Don’t mess with Veronica, because she’ll cut you.

Point Blank Creative [via Comics Alliance]

Our guest columnist is Eric Holder.

In the two years since this Administration took office, the Department of Justice has defended Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act on several occasions in federal court. Each of those cases evaluating Section 3 was considered in jurisdictions in which binding circuit court precedents hold that laws singling out people based on sexual orientation, as DOMA does, are constitutional if there is a rational basis for their enactment. While the President opposes DOMA and believes it should be repealed, the Department has defended it in court because we were able to advance reasonable arguments under that rational basis standard.

Section 3 of DOMA has now been challenged in the Second Circuit, however, which has no established or binding standard for how laws concerning sexual orientation should be treated. In these cases, the Administration faces for the first time the question of whether laws regarding sexual orientation are subject to the more permissive standard of review or whether a more rigorous standard, under which laws targeting minority groups with a history of discrimination are viewed with suspicion by the courts, should apply.

After careful consideration, including a review of my recommendation, the President has concluded that given a number of factors, including a documented history of discrimination, classifications based on sexual orientation should be subject to a more heightened standard of scrutiny. The President has also concluded that Section 3 of DOMA, as applied to legally married same-sex couples, fails to meet that standard and is therefore unconstitutional. Given that conclusion, the President has instructed the Department not to defend the statute in such cases. I fully concur with the President’s determination.

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