The annual observance of “Bloody Sunday” is now promoted by the city of Selma as a featured activity for tourism. The week-long commemoration will include workshops on “Bad Immigration Laws: A Civil and Human Rights Issue,” and “Legal Ramifications of Attack on Voter Rights.” There will be prayer breakfasts and parades, a hip-hop music summit, and a golf tournament. No one could have imagined such a thing nearly 50 years ago. Last Sunday a crowd estimated at 3,000 to 4,000 gathered for the annual kickoff of the Jubilee with speeches and protest songs. But all is not well in Alabama in 2012. This year there’s an element of poignant urgency to the celebration. The emotional highpoint of the activities will be next weekend’s retracing of the footsteps of the original march along U.S. Route 80, then named the Jefferson Davis Highway and today the Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights Trail. The largely black marchers will be joined by thousands of Latino activists seeking to draw attention to the plight of undocumented immigrants, who have been especially targeted by Alabama’s mean-spirited anti-immigrant laws.

Arizona’s extremist immigration law has gone another round in federal court — and lost again. The judge who rejected several of its provisions in 2010 temporarily blocked another section last week, the one making it a crime for day laborers to look for work on the street. The state had argued that it had restricted day-labor solicitation in the interests of traffic safety. But Judge Susan Bolton of Federal District Court ruled that the plaintiffs challenging the provision on First Amendment grounds were likely to prevail, given that the law seemed written to target particular speech “rather than a broader traffic problem.” She noted that Arizona has traffic laws to prevent dangerous acts by pedestrians and cars.

"Mitt Romney appeared to pull off a narrow victory in Ohio on Super Tuesday but lost several other states to Rick Santorum, a split verdict that overshadowed Mr. Romney's claim of collecting the most delegates and all but ensured another round of intense infighting on the road to the Republican presidential nomination. The result came at the end of a long night that put Mr. Romney that much farther ahead in the race for the nomination, but dashed any hopes he had of using the day to assert himself as the inevitable nominee."

Think Progress notes that 37 companies have pulled their advertising from Rush Limbaugh's radio show in the wake of his slurs against a Georgetown law student.
John Avlon notes Limbaugh's radio bosses are "spooked" and "the exodus hasn't stopped."
Explained radio executive Laurie Cantillo: "This controversy will no doubt give Rush a temporary ratings lift, but it won't be worth the damage that's been caused in terms of loss of revenue and advertiser confidence. It is perceived by many as an attack on young women who represent the holy grail for ratings. Women 25-54 is the prize demo for most advertisers. Rush's remarks strike at the heart of the audience they're trying to reach, hence the apology. This is an audience that's already been in gradual decline on many right-wing radio stations, so Rush's gaffe compounds the problem."