Fox News host Greta Van Susteren on Sunday blasted Republican senators for sending a “horrific” letter to Iran, and attempting an “end run” around the president.

David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, told an ABC News panel that the 46 senators who joined Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R-AR) letter undermine President Barack Obama’s negotiations with Iran had made a “horrendous” mistake.

“If you read the text of the letter, it is the most condescending, infantile text assuming that the leaders of Iran — whatever you may think of them, and there’s a lot on the record to think terribly of them — that somehow, that they have no idea what the American system is all about,” Remnick explained. “It’s an absurd comical exercise.”

Susteren agreed: “I think that letter was horrific.”

Two months before the Civil War began, Noble Leslie DeVotie was boarding a steamship when he slipped, fell into the waters of Mobile Bay, and drowned.

DeVotie was one of the founders of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, the only national fraternity founded in the antebellum South. A chaplain at Alabama's Fort Morgan at the time of his death, he became the fraternity’s—and some argue, the country's—first Civil War casualty. Nearly 75 other SAE members would die before the war’s end, the vast majority of them fighting for the Confederate South. When the survivors returned home, many found their universities burned to the ground and the 15 chapters of the fraternity in ruins.

SAE spent the next three decades rebuilding its ranks, eventually establishing chapters at Northern colleges. But their presence there among the well-established Northern fraternities was an uneasy one, so two members wrote a defiant march in which, as SAE’s manual describes it, the fraternity “entered, met and held at bay its rivals in the North.” It was the first of many songs SAE would produce, earning it the nickname “the singing fraternity.”

There's nothing quaint about the nicknames SAE has these days—on many campuses people say the initials stand for “sexual assault expected” or “same assholes everywhere.” The fraternity is also known as the one in which members are most likely to die. And now it may be called the most racist.

50 years since the march from Selma to Montgomery, we are reminded that institutional racism, racial disparities in wages and wealth, and discrimination based on color are still a harsh reality of American life. And we have a long way to go.
The latest jobs figures released by the Labor Department for February were positive, even better than expected, with 295,000 workers added last month. The official unemployment rate — which is artificially low, failing to account for people who are not actively looking for a job, the underemployed, and all those college graduates flipping burgers – dropped to 5.5 percent, down from 5.7 percent in January and the lowest since the middle of 2008. However, wages were sluggish, rising a mere 0.1 percent.

For blacks, the economic picture is quite different. While the unemployment rate for whites was 4.7 percent, it was 10.4 percent for blacks, 6.6 percent for Latinos, and 4.0 percent for Asians. Traditionally, in fact, for the past six decades, black unemployment has remained double that of whites. This racial gap tends to be higher in the Midwest and the South.

SELMA, ALABAMA — Dozens of members of Congress, and many more Republicans than ever before, came to Selma this week to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the infamous attack on voting rights protesters known as Bloody Sunday.

Some lawmakers told ThinkProgress the event highlighted the urgency of passing a currently languishing bill that would restore the full powers of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Others showed little interest in doing so.

On his way to the commemoration ceremony, Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) said it’s been “powerful” to hear stories from Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), who helped lead the Selma march 50 years ago and was severely beaten by police. But when ThinkProgress asked if he supports Lewis’ voting rights bill, he replied, “I haven’t looked at it. Is there a Senate version?”

A Senate version was introduced several weeks ago, and currently has zero Republican sponsors.

America’s favorite hippie dairymen have heard the people’s cry for cannabis-infused ice cream, and they’re not ruling it out.

Vermont-based co-founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield appeared on HuffPost Live last week to chat about the company, which they remain involved in more as figureheads than decision-makers these days. When asked if they would consider releasing weed ice cream where it is legal, Cohen immediately jumped on board.

“Makes sense to me,” he said mid-bite. “Combine your pleasures.”

Greenfield, clearly the more cautious of the two, wearing a polo instead of a “Stamp Money Out of Politics” t-shirt, gave a more measured response. He explained that he and Cohen had “previous experiences with substances,” and continued, “I think legalizing marijuana is a wonderful thing, rather than putting people in jail.”

The 6 p.m. hour of The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer was the highest-rated program across CNN’s schedule on Wednesday in both the 25-54 demo and total viewers. In the demo, the The Situation Room also beat every show on MSNBC.

Wolf Blitzer‘s 6 p.m. show had 238K in the demo, beating the entire primetime lineup on both CNN and MSNBC, but losing to Fox News’ Special Report with Bret Baier (344K) in the time slot.


In total viewers, Blitzer 609K, coming in second place at 6 p.m. behind Bret Baier (2.274M) but ahead of PoliticsNation with Al Sharpton (547K).

Late Monday night, the Chicago Tribune reported that President Obama will designate a historic district on the south side of Chicago as a national monument.

The president will travel to Chicago next week to officially announce Pullman Historic District as a National Monument, according to the Tribune. The designation, which will be the President’s 14th under the Antiquities Act, could put the site under management of the National Park Service — a move supported by a large, bipartisan coalition of surrounding communities, businesses, members of Congress, and state and local leaders, including Senators Durbin (D-IL) and Kirk (R-IL), and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

The country’s first planned industrial town, Pullman Historic District, became well known after a violent factory strike in 1894, which sparked an industry-wide strike and is now seen as a pivotal moment in the history of the labor and civil rights movements — leading to the creation of the first African American labor union. The site was determined to be of “national significance” by the National Park Service in 2013 and was identified as a “national treasure” last year by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

“The people who are part of the Pullman legacy helped to shape America as we know it today. Pullman workers fought for fair labor conditions in the late 19th century and the Pullman porters helped advance America’s Civil Rights movement,” said Lynn McLure, Midwest Senior Director at the National Parks Conservation Association in a statement. “Thanks to the President, Pullman’s story will soon be remembered and recounted for the millions of people that visit America’s national parks each year.”