The Game Change The Game Change
Nine reasons Democrats should embrace immigration reform this year.
Jul 29, 2010 / Feature / Greg Grandin
Baby Baiting Baby Baiting
Senator Lindsey Graham is the latest to join the assault on birthright citizenship, announcing that he may introduce a constitutional amendment banning automatic citizenship to the...
Jul 29, 2010 / Feature / Robin Templeton
Citizens Unite Against ‘Citizens United’ Citizens Unite Against ‘Citizens United’
MoveOn.org is leading a coalition of advocacy groups to overturn the Supreme Court decision.
Jul 29, 2010 / Feature / Ari Berman
Key Provisions of Arizona Immigration Law Blocked by Federal Judge Key Provisions of Arizona Immigration Law Blocked by Federal Judge
The Constitution is clear: the federal judge who blocked implementation of key elements of Arizona's draconian anti-immigration law has no choice but to do so.
Jul 29, 2010 / Blog / John Nichols
A Wedge Against Tyranny A Wedge Against Tyranny
Franklin Roosevelt v. the Supreme Court.
Jul 28, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Michael O’Donnell
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
Obama Team Takes the Lead on LGBT Rights at the UN Obama Team Takes the Lead on LGBT Rights at the UN
The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Comission finally won the right to be represented in major meetings at the United Nations—once the US mission showed some muscl...
Jul 23, 2010 / Barbara Crossette
How the Media Should Treat the Sexual Assault Allegations Against Al Gore How the Media Should Treat the Sexual Assault Allegations Against Al Gore
Most coverage of the allegations against Al Gore has given us permission to giggle when what we need is a sober dose of reality.
Jul 18, 2010 / Jaclyn Friedman
Switzerland’s Polanski Protection Program Switzerland’s Polanski Protection Program
I'd like to get away with a crime, too. How great a writer do I have to be to have the Swiss government protect me?
Jul 15, 2010 / Blog / Katha Pollitt
Charges in Police Killings Just a Start Charges in Police Killings Just a Start
If a federal investigation's good enough for New Orleans, how about Oakland too?
Jul 14, 2010 / The Notion / Laura Flanders