At the end of this month, Sarah Palin will no longer be Alaska’s governor. The Thrilla from Wasilla made her announcement on Friday, sparking speculation that she may be preparing to run for president in 2012—or that she was compelled to resign for less opportune reasons.

Declaring that she doesn’t want to be another lame-duck politician, Palin said she will be on hand to swear in Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell at the end of the month and said, “I know when it’s time to pass the ball for victory.”

Update: Palin’s abrupt announcement, of course, is also striking some as a sign that she could be the subject of a scandal, including The Brad Blog’s Brad Friedman, TPM’s Josh Marshall and The Huffington Post’s Shannyn Moore. 

MSNBC:

She said the decision has been “in the works” for a while and comes after “prayer and consideration.”

She is handing the reins over to Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell, who will be sworn in on July 25. Parnell and most of Palin’s cabinet were present at the announcement.

“We know we can effect positive change outside government at this moment in time on another scale and actually make a difference,” she said, adding that politics had become a “superficial, wasteful bloodsport.”

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Number 44 has been spotted in Orlando, in the form of an animatronic addition to Walt Disney World’s Hall of Presidents. And it speaks with the president’s actual voice. It’s as creepy as it is amazing, and easily worth a quick look.

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The immigration raids of the Bush years that have carried over into the Obama administration may be changing. The era of federal agents busting into shops and rounding up undocumented workers for deportation is being replaced by a new effort to use fines and civil sanctions, making employers responsible, rather than the workers themselves.

The new effort, exemplified by the way immigration officials approached clothing manufacturer American Apparel, is oddly timed given the raids in Los Angeles just last week.

The New York Times:

Immigration authorities had bad news this week for American Apparel, the T-shirt maker based in downtown Los Angeles: About 1,800 of its employees appeared to be illegal immigrants not authorized to work in the United States.

But in contrast to the high-profile raids that marked the enforcement approach of the Bush administration, no federal agents with criminal warrants stormed the company’s factories and rounded up employees. Instead, the federal immigration agency sent American Apparel a written notice that it faced civil fines and would have to fire any workers confirmed to be unauthorized.

The treatment of American Apparel, which has more than 5,600 factory employees in Los Angeles alone, is the most prominent demonstration of a new strategy by the Obama administration to curb the employment of illegal immigrants by focusing on employers who hire them — and doing so in a less confrontational manner than in years past.

Unlike the approach of the Bush administration, which brought criminal charges in its final two years against many illegal immigrant workers, the new effort makes broader use of fines and other civil sanctions, federal officials said Thursday.

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Not only are the Freemasons a bit weird, some are also a bit racist. The admittance of Victor Marshall, a 26-year-old African American, to a chapter in Atlanta last year caused many Georgian Freemasons to seek to revoke the charter of Marshall’s chapter, sparking a legal battle over equality in this new “post-racial” world.

The Guardian:

There is much about Freemasonry that remains shrouded in mystery to the outside world. But a group of members in the US state of Georgia appear to have clarified one thing—the supreme being in which all Masons are required to believe is not likely to be black.

Freemasonry lodges in Georgia are at loggerheads over the admission of a “non-white” member to an organisation that was founded on the principles of the Enlightenment but which is apparently still struggling to catch up with the latter part of the 20th century.

Now the issue is headed for a Masonic trial and the state courts after some lodges in Georgia sought to revoke the charter of one in Atlanta for admitting Victor Marshall, a 26-year-old African-American army reservist, last autumn.

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It was the British! According to the Iranian government, it wasn’t the corrupt election or even general resentment toward a heavy-handed state that led to the massive postelection protests in Iran. Instead the regime has detained staffers from the British Embassy in Tehran, and reportedly will put them on trial on charges of inciting protests against the government.

BBC:

Some UK embassy staff detained in Tehran and accused of inciting protests after disputed elections will face trial, a top Iranian cleric says.

Guardians Council chief Ahmad Jannati said: “Naturally they will be put on trial, they have made confessions.”

Nine embassy staff were held in Tehran last weekend. Britain says all but two have now been freed.

EU governments are to summon Iranian ambassadors to protest against the detention of the embassy staff.

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“That filthy little atheist,” as Thomas Paine was called by Theodore Roosevelt, has few monuments dedicated to his memory. Building a bronze and marble monument to Paine will never revive the republic, but his words still carry an electric current of freedom. His intellectual and political energy is always available for rediscovery.

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When it comes to the problem of health care costs, I don’t know why everyone doesn’t just do what I do, which is to have a sister who is a doctor.

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Just how important is a baseball team’s manager to how well a team performs? A new book by one of baseball’s giants attempts an answer. You be the judge.

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