Adam Serwer

Agree with what Jon Chait says here–if a Republican wins in 2012, we’re getting stimulus. The GOP will want the guy to get reelected after all. Here are my premises. Most Republican embrace of contractionary fiscal policy reflects conscious or unconscious partisanship rather than a sudden conversion to Austrian economics. You do have some genuine […]

Obama wants to take whitey’s money. Obama wants to take whitey’s money. Obama wants to take whitey’s money. Obama wants to take whitey’s money. Obama wants to take whitey’s money. Obama wants to take whitey’s money. Obama wants to take whitey’s money. Obama wants to take whitey’s money. Obama wants to take whitey’s money. Obama […]

I want to address a separate claim from Kevin Drum’s defense of Obama’s effectiveness as a politician, specifically Drum’s argument that “in two years Obama has done more to enact a liberal agenda than George Bush did for the conservative agenda in eight.” Again, I don’t think Bush was particularly effective. Wringing 60 votes for […]

So I initially bought the excuse given by Ombudsman Patrick Pexton for why Jennifer Rubin didn’t update her post assuming that the Oslo attacks had been committed by Muslim extremists–that she was observing the Sabbath. Eric Alterman and Ron Kampeas did a little digging and found not only does the timing not add up, but […]

Part of the Obama administration’s counter-radicalization strategy released yesterday obliquely references the controversy over anti-Muslim terrorism “experts” who have received generous federal grants for Islamophobic “training” of local law enforcement: Government and law enforcement at the local level have well-established relationships with communities, developed through years of consistent engagement, and therefore can effectively build partnerships […]

Nick Sementelli flags the testimony of Peter Neumann, director of the International Center for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence at King’s College in London, to Representative Sue Myrick’s subcommittee hearing on domestic radicalization in the U.S. Myrick, as Sementelli points out, is a big believer in the stealth jihad conspiracy theory, so imagine […]

The immigration policy debate in this country is taking place in two distinct universes: A bizarro world where Obama is president amnesty, granting citizenship to undocumented immigrants by fiat, and planet Earth, where Obama is deporting more undocumented immigrants than ever and being stingier about deferring deportations than his predecessor. Rep. Lamar Smith’s HALT Act […]

I think Christine Fair’s criticism of Nicholas Schmidle’s tick-tock on the Osama bin Laden raid makes some fair points about sourcing, but her objection to Schmidle reporting that the Navy SEAL who took down bin Laden whispered “for G-d and country” to himself before pulling the trigger isn’t really relevant: Finally, whether or not the […]

Kevin Drum makes the case: What’s more, Obama also won passage during his first two years of a stimulus bill, a landmark healthcare bill that Democrats had been trying to pass for the better part of a century, a financial reform bill, and much needed reform of student loans. And more: a firm end to […]

Not to be outdone by Rick Perry, Ben Smith reports that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has signed the National Organization for Marriage’s pledge to “defend marriage” by supporting a constitutional amendment to ban marriage equality (via Igor Volsky): The last part of the pledge commits Romney to undoing marriage equality in the nation’s capital, […]