Adam Serwer

This part of the Gitmo releases is particularly interesting: In many cases, the detainees made direct allegations of others’ involvement in militant activities; in others, they gave contextual information used to help build the edges of a case. While many other intelligence sources were referred to in those detainee assessment forms, including in some cases […]

Last week I noted that we’re rapidly approaching the kind of society where frank homophobia is almost as socially radioactive as similarly blunt expressions of racism. Amanda Terkel reports that the high-priced law firm the GOP hired to defend the constitutionality of the ban on federal recognition of same-sex marriage has decided against taking the […]

The Supreme Court has rejected Ken Cuccinelli‘s request for an expedited review of his challenge to the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. The news shouldn’t be taken as an indication that the challenge is any less viable, a question that turns less on legal precedent and more on the individual views of the justices […]

Matthew Yglesias writes that I was being “unfair” in pointing out that a majority of Republicans think that the government should provide health care for old people, but only about a quarter think it should provide health care for poor people. That’s true, but also seems somewhat unfair. The gap is bigger for Republicans but […]

Several media outlets have published stories on the latest raft of documents to be leaked, this time involving information on the hundreds of detainees that have been held at the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay. The liberal British newspaper The Guardian focuses on the fact that many of the detainees held there were “flown to […]

Omar is coming. The rabbi who made Coca Cola kosher. Debunking the Trig truthers. A life sentence for 1.2 grams of crack? For-profit colleges make me furious.

Over at Greg‘s place, I explain what I think is the real issue behind the use of drones in Libya: In terms of killing fewer civilians, it’s probably better for the U.S. to be using drones at this point, because they are better at distinguishing a military target from a civilian one than an F-15. […]

This exchange between Sean Hannity and Minnesota Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison is frankly amazing. Hannity asks whether we should be “investigating the Nation of Islam,” to which Ellison responds, “I think we should be investigating people where there’s probably cause to believe they’ve committed a crime…That’s why we have a Constitution.” C’mon Keith, you know […]

Matthew Yglesias posts a chart showing how Americans feel about the government being responsible for providing health care for the poor and elderly. Turns out far more Republicans think the elderly deserve government health care than the poor: I’m not sure there’s any other explanation for the fact that Republicans are so much more likely […]

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to attend a short meeting between Dr. Shirin Ebadi and a group of reporters and think-tankers at George Washington University. Ebadi is an Iranian lawyer and longtime human-rights activist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003. Many of the questions centered around Iran’s democratic green movement. Dr. Ebadi expressed […]