Adam Serwer

Step one: Obstruct all efforts at immigration reform, accuse the president of holding the border “hostage” even as he deports a record number of illegal immigrants. Step two: Remind everyone how the president broke his promise to pass immigration reform.

Rick Kahlenberg writes about our American meritocracy: Among selective research universities, public and private, almost three-quarters employ legacy preferences, as do the vast majority of selective liberal arts colleges. Some admissions departments insist they are used only as tie-breakers among deserving applicants. But studies have shown that being the child of an alumnus adds the […]

New post back at Greg Sargent‘s place, on how Republicans are listening to really bad advice from Islamophobes on national security. Also, in case you missed it, here’s yesterday’s post on how GOP opposition to disclosing donors to advocacy groups reflects a Palinization of the conservative view of the First Amendment.

The New America Foundation and Terror Free Tomorrow have released a new poll of residents in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas–an obviously difficult place to measure public opinion–finding that residents disapprove of the CIA drone strikes and American policies, but do want the Pakistani Army to be aggressive in fighting militants. The opposition to the […]

So I think it’s important to acknowledge that in his response, Ben Wittes isn’t arguing, simply, that the president has the authority to kill anyone suspected of terrorism under any circumstances. He’s arguing that authority is more narrow (emphasis original): The real dispute centers around the targeting of a U.S. national in zones at once […]

Spencer Ackerman flags a study from the Quilliam Foundation report about Islamic extremist behavior on the internet, pointing out that they act a lot like other conspiracy theorists: At the same time, however, online Jihadists are constantly engaged in a struggle to protect themselves and their websites against the infiltration of hostile individuals and ideas. […]

The U.S. condemns torture, killings, and arbitrary detention in Iran. I wanted to respond in detail to Ben Wittes today, but that’ll have to wait till tomorrow. Kevin Jon Heller and Matt Yglesias already did. I like Kevin Williamson‘s “I’m a small government guy” argument against targeted killing. Retro Batman.

Children with a parent in prison, by race, from Pew’s report on incarceration and income mobility: For black children, the loss of income mobility caused by an incarcerated parent compounds itself. According to the report, prior to incarceration, a little less than half of these parents lived with their children, and slightly more than half […]

Rep. Louis Gohmert, last seen ranting about the scourge of “terror babies” as part of a pitch to end birthright citizenship, has an idea for how to deal with unemployment: We have people on welfare and I know there’s some that just don’t wanna work, but there’s some that do. How ’bout if instead of […]

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley has opened up an 11-point lead over former and current Republican rival Bob Erlich, largely based on the fact that the enthusiasm gap facing Democrats all over the country doesn’t exist in Maryland. The unemployment rate in Maryland suggests it’s still the economy, stupid: Even though the unemployment rate is still […]