McCain: Comprehensive Immigration Reform Must Include Path To Citizenship  —  Senator John McCain (R-AZ) confirmed on Sunday morning that he that he and a bipartisan group of senators will roll out a comprehensive immigration reform effort in Congress.  Speaking on ABC's “This Week,” McCain …

From Welfare Queens to Disabled Deadbeats  —  If you want to understand the trouble Republicans are in, one good place to start is with the obsession the right has lately developed with the rising disability rolls.  The growing number of Americans receiving disability payments has …

Jerry Boykin Feels Humiliated ‘as a Man’ With Women in Combat Because of ‘Personal Hygiene’ … An anti-Muslim retired lieutenant general says that he would not want to serve in a combat role with women because “personal hygiene and the other normal functions” are already “degrading and humiliating enough” …

Sunday Times blood libel cartoon, on Holocaust Memorial Day no less  —  Why can't cartoonists seem to criticise Israel without the use of big noses and blood libels?  And why do the mainstream papers still publish this stuff?  —  Today is Holocaust Memorial Day.

Selling a New Generation on Guns  —  Threatened by long-term declining participation in shooting sports, the firearms industry has poured millions of dollars into a broad campaign to ensure its future by getting guns into the hands of more, and younger, children.

Obama says he goes skeet shooting ‘all the time’ at Camp David  —  President Obama says he regularly skeet shoots at Camp David and called on gun-control proponents to “do a little more listening” to gun owners in the national debate over firearms.  —  In an interview with The New Republic posted …

For The Sixth Time In One Week, Man Shot At Gun Show  —  Gun activists designated last Saturday “Gun Appreciation Day” in an attempt to highlight their opposition to gun safety laws.  The PR stunt proved to be more of an embarrassment, however, when 5 people were shot at 3 different gun shows on Gun Appreciation Day.

Secret Donors Finance Fight Against Hagel  —  A brand new conservative group calling itself Americans for a Strong Defense and financed by anonymous donors is running advertisements urging Democratic senators in five states to vote against Chuck Hagel, President Obama's nominee to be secretary of defense …

McChrystal: Women will serve in, improve special-forces units  —  Retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal predicted Sunday that women will eventually become part of special operations units like the Navy SEALs and Army Rangers, saying that including female servicemembers could improve the elite groups' operations.

Obama discusses media influence  —  The New Republic has just lifted the embargo on its wideranging interview with President Obama, in which he talked at length about the role the media can play in breaking Washington's partisan gridlock.  —  “One of the biggest factors …

Scores Dead as Fire Sweeps Through Nightclub in Brazil  —  RIO DE JANEIRO — A fire ignited by a flare from a live band's pyrotechnic spectacle swept through a nightclub filled with hundreds of university students early Sunday morning in Santa Maria, a city in southern Brazil, leaving at least 245 people dead, police officials said.

Wake-Up Call: A Disastrous Week for Carbon Trading  —  The European cap-and-trade system has slid into near meaninglessness as Germany bickers on the sidelines.  Hopes that the election in Lower Saxony might resolve the high-level bickering were misguided.  Now Europe's carbon market has hit a new low.