Could WikiLeaks Offer a Way Out of War? Could WikiLeaks Offer a Way Out of War?
The futility and frustration illustrated in the WikiLeaks documents should provide a wide opening for a much-needed discussion on the human and financial costs of war in Afghanista...
Jul 27, 2010 / Katrina vanden Heuvel
ACTNOW: CIW Slave Museum Tours the Northeast ACTNOW: CIW Slave Museum Tours the Northeast
The Modern-Day Slave Museum is coming to the Northeast.
Jul 27, 2010 / George Warner
Energy Policy Fail Energy Policy Fail
A watered-down version of an energy bill is being published today—but Obama can effect clean changes simply by changing the types of products that the federal government buys...
Jul 27, 2010 / The Rachel Maddow Show
The Forgotten Threat: ‘Countdown to Zero’ on Nuclear Weapons The Forgotten Threat: ‘Countdown to Zero’ on Nuclear Weapons
The nuclear abolition documentary Countdown to Zero is not just a howl of alarm or a historical primer. It's a shocking but completely reliable account of the issue of nuclear weap...
Jul 27, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Jonathan Schell
As WikiLeaks Shake Washington, Congressmen Propose Vote to Exit Pakistan As WikiLeaks Shake Washington, Congressmen Propose Vote to Exit Pakistan
The House will vote on whether to continue funding the occupation of Afghanistan—and on whether to get US troops out of Pakistan.
Jul 27, 2010 / John Nichols
StudentNation: Making an Educated Investment StudentNation: Making an Educated Investment
In a society where a bachelor’s degree is the new high school diploma and a master’s degree is the new bachelor’s, the issue of college affordability is a common ...
Jul 27, 2010 / StudentNation / Melanie Breault
Briefing: Katrina vanden Heuvel on Afghanistan After WikiLeaks Briefing: Katrina vanden Heuvel on Afghanistan After WikiLeaks
New documents released by WikiLeaks paint a still more chilling picture of the war in Afghanistan. Katrina vanden Heuvel talks about the WikiLeaks revelations, Andrew Breitbart'...
Jul 27, 2010 / The Nation on Grit TV
Dan Ellsberg on WikiLeaks & the Essential Democratic Question: Who Will Tell the People? Dan Ellsberg on WikiLeaks & the Essential Democratic Question: Who Will Tell the People?
Pentagon Papers player sees "immediate parallels" between those who now leak details of Afghanistan and Iraq Wars and what he did during Vietnam.
Jul 27, 2010 / John Nichols
Pressured by Students, Nike Agrees to Help Workers in Honduras Pressured by Students, Nike Agrees to Help Workers in Honduras
Facing pressure from universities and student groups, Nike has announced that it would pay $1.5 million to help almost 2,000 workers in Honduras who lost their jobs.
Jul 26, 2010 / StudentNation / Aaron Ross
Anti-Muslim Bigot and Fanatic Explains Islam to the FBI and the Tidewater Joint Terrorism Task Force Anti-Muslim Bigot and Fanatic Explains Islam to the FBI and the Tidewater Joint Terrorism Task Force
The Council on American Islamic Relations is making noise about the fact that an extremist, right-wing anti-Muslim rabble rouser was "invited to offer training to state and federal law enforcement officers." It sounds like something that might have happened under the administration of President Bush, but no—this happened on Obama's watch. Robert Spencer, co-founder of the group Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA), is the culprit. According to CAIR, Spencer was called in recently to pontificate to the Tidewater Joint Terrorism Task Force. (The JTTFs are law enforcement and intelligence coalitions that began Washington. Soon every jurisdiction wanted the federal dough for a JTTF, and after 9/11 the number of JTTFs exploded.) "Our nation's law enforcement personnel should not receive training from the head of a hate group that seeks to demonize Islam and to prevent American Muslims from exercising their rights as citizens," said CAIR national communications director Ibrahim Hooper. "Robert Spencer is the same individual who claims in his new book that President Obama is waging 'war on America.' " He noted that Spencer recently co-authored the book, "The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America," that sounds a "wake-up call for Americans to stop the Obama administration from limiting our hard-won freedoms, silencing our democratic voices, and irreparably harming America for generations to come." According to Loonwatch, the SIOA is so extreme that it seems almost satirical. Like a Tea Party phalanx of radical anti-Muslim bigots, the SIOA says that its goal is educate Americans "about about the threat that Islamic doctrine and those who support it present to our freedoms, and the future of our democracy and country." Its organizers call themselves "scholar warriors/ideological warriors in the cause of American freedom and Constitutional government," as well as in "the defense of…our society of liberty, knowledge, and human decency." Spencer's co-founder, Pamela Geller, is a piece of work, too. Notes CAIR: Geller has posted images on her blog that include a fake photograph of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan in a Nazi uniform, another fake image of President Obama urinating on an American flag and drawings purporting to depict Islam's Prophet Muhammad as a pig. In a June 25 blog entry, Geller posted a video claiming that Muslims engage in bestiality. This needs repudiation—or, as Sarah Palin would say, refudiation—from the Justice Department, and quick.
Jul 26, 2010 / Bob Dreyfuss