Slide Show: 7 Ways Obama’s State of the Union Can Save His Presidency Slide Show: 7 Ways Obama’s State of the Union Can Save His Presidency
When President Obama makes his annual State of the Union Address Tuesday evening to a nation deeply riven by social and ideological divides, he will likely emphasize an economic pl…
Jan 24, 2011 / Photo Essay / The Nation
Robert Gibbs Is Out! Maybe Now This White House Will Learn to Communicate Robert Gibbs Is Out! Maybe Now This White House Will Learn to Communicate
No one, except Rahm Emanuel, did more harm to Obama's relationship with its base than Gibbs.
Jan 5, 2011 / Blog / John Nichols
Trading Jobs for More of the Same Trading Jobs for More of the Same
The Clinton years analogies have been coming fast and furious since the midterm elections and Obama's self-described “shellacking.” But today's administration see...
Jan 4, 2011 / The Notion / Laura Flanders
The Holiday Pulpit: Thanksgiving Proclamations Should Call Us to Action The Holiday Pulpit: Thanksgiving Proclamations Should Call Us to Action
Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower set an activist standard with their Thanksgiving Proclamations. Obama should emulate it.
Nov 25, 2010 / Blog / John Nichols
Not an ‘Option’ But a Necessity: Investigate, Document and Censure Bush’s Wrongdoing Not an ‘Option’ But a Necessity: Investigate, Document and Censure Bush’s Wrongdoing
The ACLU and the Alliance for Justice are right: the Justice Department must respond to the former president's admitted violations of laws banning torture. But it should not s...
Nov 15, 2010 / Blog / John Nichols
Rahm’s Departure Will Help Reset Obama White House Rahm’s Departure Will Help Reset Obama White House
Rahm's depature affords Obama a perfect opportunity to reconnect with his grassroots base.
Sep 30, 2010 / The Notion / Ari Berman
There Will Be ‘Hell to Pay’ If Elizabeth Warren Does Not Have Real Power There Will Be ‘Hell to Pay’ If Elizabeth Warren Does Not Have Real Power
Progressives worry that Obama is being "coy" about the authority he has handed the consumer champion. They're right to worry, and to keep the pressure on.
Sep 17, 2010 / Blog / John Nichols
Kabuki Democracy Kabuki Democracy
Why a progressive presidency is impossible, for now.
Aug 12, 2010 / Feature / Eric Alterman
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 / Blog / Bob Dreyfuss
Kabuki Democracy: Why a Progressive Presidency Is Impossible, for Now Kabuki Democracy: Why a Progressive Presidency Is Impossible, for Now
Even with supermajorities in both houses of Congress behind them, American presidents cannot pass the kind of transformative progressive legislation that Barack Obama promised in...
Jul 7, 2010 / Eric Alterman