christopher_hallam

Uh, TPM, I love you, but this: Is not an appropriate headline for an immigration reform story.

Cord Jefferson thinks I haven’t adequately explained why the Justice Department didn’t “throw the book” at the New Black Panthers involved in the 2008 Philadelphia voter intimidation case: Why didn’t Justice throw the book at these clowns? It’s certainly wasn’t a case that required the time, energy and finances of the entire Civil Rights Division, […]

Continuing the ongoing media farce that is Fox’s coverage of the new Black Panther case, Oliver Willis points to a segment in which poll watcher Bartle Bull, the poll watcher who was present at the polling station in Philadelphia when the incident occurred, ties the NBPP case to ACORN: BULL: We’re making judgments. We don’t […]

One of The American Prospect‘s blessings and curses is that we’re sometimes ahead of the curve, and in November 2008, in focusing an issue on the structural and institutional obstacles to progressive governance prior to the presidential election, we were way ahead of the curve. Recently, a [[I’D CUT SPORADIC, IT SEEMS WEIRD TO HAVE […]

I shouldn’t be astonished by the fidelity with which the mainstream press has adhered to the conservative narrative on the New Black Panther Party case, but I genuinely am. [[THIS SENTENCE DOESN’T MAKE SENSE? WHAT DOES DROPPING THE CASE HAVE TO DO WITH THE BATON, AND WHO IS SUGGESTING THE TWO THINGS ARE RELATED, AND […]

Back when he was at the Boston Globe, Charlie Savage did some crack investigative reporting on how the Bush-era political appointees dismantled the safeguards against politicized hiring–something no previous administration had done. The documents show that only 42 percent of the lawyers hired since 2003, after the administration changed the rules to give political appointees […]

The resignation of conservative activist J. Christian Adams from the Voting Rights Section of the Justice Department has offered the conservative noise machine an opportunity to resurrect charges that the Obama administration has politicized the Department of Justice. But to understand this story, you have to understand that there are, in fact, two different [[THREADS […]

Marc Thiessen has some really abhorrent opinions–his love for torture, for instance. He also has crappy opinions about sports (via Jon Chait): The world is crazy for soccer, but most Americans don’t give a hoot about the sport. Why? Many years ago, my former White House colleague Bill McGurn pointed out to me the real […]

Conservatives have been trashing the so-called “empathy standard” for a while now, but mostly because President Obama said he wanted a judge with the ability to “empathize” with individual people whom would be affected by their rulings. I’ve written before that conservatives aren’t so much opposed to empathy as much as they’re opposed with who […]

Mike Konczal writes, contrary to what I said earlier this week, that there’s “one last battle to be fought” on guns: A friend on the hill forwarded me the following. Supported by the NRA, Rep John Boccieri (D-OH) is pushing to allow firearms to be exempt from bankruptcy: “In those states that allow a debtor […]