Rep. Peter King's call for an investigation into Newscorp following revelations that media organizations owned by Rupert Murdoch allegedly tried to hack the phones of 9/11 victims is probably a smaller deal than it seems:

King said in the letter, addressed to FBI Director Robert Mueller, that the journalists should face felony charges if the allegations are proven true.

One of the more common refrains on the right in defense of restrictive immigration laws is that the federal government has "failed" to address the problem, so it only makes sense that the states are taking matters into their own hands. Ilya Shapiro, who defends the constitutionality of SB 1070 but argues that its bad policy, offers a version of this argument:

And yet most people agree on the types of problems we face from this dysfunctional situation:

ten to twelve million illegal aliens living in the law’s shadow;

Rick Perry's Confederate past.

Woman jailed for trying to keep her daughter from getting a TSA pat-down.

ACLU goes after the CIA's Juan Cole files.

Gaming out the political impact of a debt ceiling deal.

Having finally gotten through four seasons of Battlestar Galactica, I want to revisit the occupation/New Caprica storyline that was widely received as a criticism of the war in Iraq. The occupation arc is actually my favorite part of the series, not just because it was extraordinarily well done but because the rescue sequence, in which the Galactica executes a faster than light jump into New Caprica's atmosphere, releasing its fighters to they can take out the ground based defenses, is one of the coolest space opera battle scenes ever, hands down.

James Zogby's Arab American Institute has some bad news for the Obama administration regarding its outreach to the Muslim world, finding that the U.S.' approval is " lower than at the end of the Bush Administration, and lower than Iran's favorable ratings." Across the board in the countries surveyed, respondents cited "continuing occupation of Palestinian lands" as an obstacle to peace and stability in the region, even above "U.S. interference in the Arab world," which came second. The poll measured opinions in Morocco, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Jordan. 

Today the Washington Times published an op-ed from Retired Admiral James A. Lyons arguing that the decision of the Army to allow a Muslim soldier to acquire conscientious objector status shows it has "embraced" the worldview of Ft. Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan:

David Swerdlick and John McWhorter are debating the significance of Herman Cain, with McWhorter concluding that:

Are they embracing him just because he allows them to disavow racism? Let's say there's some of that -- but then the same people who would make this charge are surely aware, and often say, that the whites who embraced Obama had a lot of that in them as well. Herman Cain is a black man -- and not a Guess Who's Coming to Dinner type -- being embraced by, of all people, Republicans. After all, wouldn't we expect Republicans to be swooning for another "not too black" type instead?