Adam Serwer

Spencer Ackerman flags this passage from an column by Mike Kelly about what he saw at a gathering protesting the construction of an Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero: At one point, a portion of the crowd menacingly surrounded two Egyptian men who were speaking Arabic and were thought to be Muslims. “Go home,” several […]

John Holbo has a really interesting post dismantling the logic of conservatives who aren’t content merely to paint their opponents as wrong but as active participants in a conspiracy to destroy America. Holbo draws particular attention to Andy McCarthy‘s latest book, which alleges a vast conspiracy between “The Left” and al-Qaeda to destroy the Constitution […]

After years of press hand-wringing over President Obama not biting his lip like Bill Clinton, pounding his fist like Harry Truman, or blustering like George W. Bush, the president himself has finally surrendered: “I was down there a month ago, before most of these talking heads were even paying attention to the Gulf,” the president […]

I’m not going to defend Helen Thomas‘ comments. Any American who is going to argue that Israeli Jews should “get out” is going to have to be willing to advocate for the return of all the land west of the Mississippi River to Native Americans, since the provenance of the land on which America stands […]

Roy Edroso has a good column up about the crazed right-wing reaction to the Gaza flotilla incident, but I think he misreads the movement against birthright citizenship here: When it was revealed that one of the dead was an American citizen, rightbloggers were quick to point out that the late Furkan Dogan wasn’t really a […]

When the torture memos were released, one of the things I noticed was that the authors used the presence of physicians in interrogations as alibis. The presence of the doctors was meant as proof of the U.S. officials’ “good faith belief” that they didn’t mean to inflict “severe physical or mental suffering” on the detainees […]

Two New Jersey men, Mohamed Mahmood Alessa and Carlos Eduardo Almonte, were arrested at JFK airport yesterday on suspicion of trying to join Al-Shabaab, the Somali terrorist group that has been affiliated with al-Qaeda. I’ve written about this before, but in light of the arrests, it’s worth pointing out again that this group — which […]

After passing a draconian immigration law based on a crime wave that doesn’t exist and banning ethnic studies on the grounds that they breed “resentment” against white people, it’s really hard to be surprised that Steve Blair, a city councilman in the town of Prescott is angry that a school mural depicts children of color […]

All-purpose geek publication IGN, considering the upcoming Supreme Court video game censorship case Schwarzenegger v. Video Software Dealers Association, in which the court will decide the constitutionality of a California law barring the sale or rental of violent video games to minors, lets everyone know how they really feel about the court’s record so far: […]

In a speech before the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Attorney General Eric Holder reiterated the administration’s view, put forth in the new National Security Strategy, that Muslim communities have an important role to play in fighting terrorism, referring to “the crucial, ongoing dialogue between law enforcement and members of the Arab-American community” as “one of our […]