Philly.com – By Larry Margasak and Devlin Barrett – Associated Press
Washington – Noting recent incidents of “bias-motivated violence,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said yesterday that new hate-crimes laws were needed to stop what he called “violence masquerading as political activism.”
Holder’s call for Congress to act came as a civil rights coalition reported a surge in white-supremacist activity since the election of the first black president and another group reported a jump in the number of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people killed in bias attacks.