Adam Serwer

I found this picture of President Barack Obama meeting with surviving workers from the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers strike pretty moving: This was Martin Luther King Jr.‘s final protest prior to his assassination. The man in the White House owes his job in part to the men he shares this picture with.

So here’s an interesting wrinkle in that story I wrote a few weeks back about Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty‘s Emerging Markets Homeowner’s Initative, which encouraged firms to offer sharia-compliant loans to promote minority homeownership. Conservative commentator Dick Morris apparently wrote about the issue in his 2010 book (even encouraging readers to express their displeasure with […]

This is what the Washington Post editorial page had to say about birtherism two days ago: IT SAYS SOMETHING embarrassing — actually, make that disturbing — about the state of American politics that the president of the United States took to the White House briefing room Wednesday to prove that he had, in fact, been […]

At Greg’s place I have a piece up on the Obama administration’s reported decision to compel private companies with government contracts to disclose their political donations: These firms are getting paid taxpayer dollars in exchange for their services. That means that any political causes they are funding are being paid for with the public’s money. […]

Last week I reported that the administration had told immigration activists and sympathetic law enforcement officials that it would refuse the Senate’s request to set up a formal system for applying for “deferred action” in order to avoid deporting undocumented immigrants who would be eligible under the DREAM Act. The administration’s position is that changes […]

I couldn’t agree more with what Jesse Taylor has to say here: The narrative that the birther brigade has adopted is simple: Barack Obama is alien. Because he is alien, both in terms of his nationality and his race, his accomplishments cannot be his, and must be the result of a vast conspiracy of white […]

Senator Rick Santorum is making sharia a big part of his campaign pitch: “Today our leaders have opted for political correctness, referring to our theologically motivated enemies as simply terrorists,” he said. “But terrorism is a tactic, not an ideology. This new existential threat to America, Sharia and its violent iteration jihadism, has yet to […]

NGO fairy tales. How a potential social network spy came undone. Benching minority judges. In defense of flogging.

Jonathan Blanks reflects on the history of black disenfranchisement, coining his “new nigger rule” inspired by comedian Paul Mooney: A NNR is a legal or administrative procedure which is enforced with benign pretense, yet has the demonstrable effect of abetting racism, prejudice, or otherwise just screwing the black guy. Historical examples include, but are not […]

This is going to lead to some kind of right-wing freakout: The key scene takes place in “The Incident,” a short story in Action Comics #900 written by David S. Goyer with art by Miguel Sepulveda. In it, Superman consults with the President’s national security advisor, who is incensed that Superman appeared in Tehran to […]