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 / Video / 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 / Blog / John Nichols
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
Race, Lies and Videotape: Lessons From the Shirley Sherrod Saga Race, Lies and Videotape: Lessons From the Shirley Sherrod Saga
In the wake of Andrew Breitbart's Shirley Sherrod hoax, all too many liberals are ready to proclaim that racism is over, caving to the Tea Party's politics of resentment.
Jul 26, 2010 / The Notion / Richard Kim
Daniel Schorr and the Art of Making the Right Enemies Daniel Schorr and the Art of Making the Right Enemies
Broadcast journalist Daniel Schorr, like Tom Paine, knew how to get on the wrong side of presidents.
Jul 26, 2010 / Blog / John Nichols
The Shame of the Fourth Estate The Shame of the Fourth Estate
The mainstream media's long-time kid-glove treatment of Andrew Breitbart led directly to the unjustified ouster of Shirley Sherrod.
Jul 26, 2010 / Charles Kaiser
How To Make Textbooks More Affordable How To Make Textbooks More Affordable
College students currently spend an average of $900 a year on textbooks—a number that has increased at four times the rate of inflation since 1994.
Jul 26, 2010 / StudentNation / Carrie Battan
Finding Racial Inspiration in the Shirley Sherrod Story Finding Racial Inspiration in the Shirley Sherrod Story
The Sunday morning pundits have renewed my frustration with our national reaction to the vilification of Shirley Sherrod. It seems we are insisting on focusing exclusively on the p...
Jul 25, 2010 / The Notion / Melissa Harris-Perry
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