Adam Serwer

Hello again, everyone! I’m Dara; you may recognize me from my last guest stint on this blog. It’s good to be back here, and I’d actually like to start off by digging a little deeper into something Adam linked to earlier in the month: a Linda Greenhouse post about the slow erosion of Fourth Amendment […]

This seems like the logical consequence of Citizens United. All I ask is that if it’s upheld, politicians start wearing NASCAR-like suits with their corporate sponsors on them. Don’t rescue the global jihad. Some Dems stick up for Obama on Israel. Jockeying for stigma.

The joke writes itself: President signs reauthorization of a broad, secretive, unaccountable law with no new oversight or privacy protections using an autopen, and Republicans have fixated on…the autopen. I actually couldn’t think of a better recent example of Republicans dwelling on a relatively minor issue as an unprecedented and frightening symbol of creeping tyranny […]

I recommend reading Matt Duss‘ response to Charles Krauthammer‘s column today suggesting that there haven’t been any concessions on the Palestinian side when it comes to territory: “Exactly what bold steps for peace have the Palestinians taken?” Krauthammer asks. Well, for starters, how about relinquishing claims to 78 percent of Palestine? This is precisely what […]

Yesterday, despite a White House veto threat, the House voted to approve a defense funding bill that contains an expansion of the original post-9/11 authorization to use military force and provisions that would hamper the prosecution or transfer of Gitmo detainees, as well as force the Department of Justice to consult with the defense secretary […]

Yesterday, as the vote for PATRIOT reauthorization approached, Sen. Rand Paul managed to browbeat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid into allowing votes on two of Paul’s amendments. These two were the weakest of the ones that Paul offered. The first was an amendment to prevent PATRIOT Act powers from being used to acquire gun ownership […]

Liliana Segura interviews Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, who puts the Supreme Court’s recent decision on California prisons in context: The Supreme Court has stood quietly by in the era of mass incarceration. And in fact, to the extent that they’ve raised their voices at […]

Scott Lemieux takes a look at the Supreme Court’s decision in Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting, in which the conservative majority upheld a state law requiring employers to use the federal government’s E-Verify system, which critics have said is deeply flawed, or face serious legal sanctions: This is a close case, and Arizona’s scapegoating of […]

Post-Jewish Zionism. Eric Alterman doesn’t like the New York Times‘ new opinion columnist. Black people disagree on stuff. Terrifying.

In attempting to pass the reauthorization of the expiring PATRIOT Act provisions as soon as possible, Majority Leader Harry Reid has descended into the kind of rhetoric that would have made former Vice President Dick Cheney proud, Spencer Ackerman reports: All the libertarian senator Rand Paul wanted was to add amendments to the government’s cherished […]