Yesterday The New York Times has confirmed what a former military intelligence officer told me earlier this week, that the unredacted documents released by WikiLeaks have put Afghans who assisted coalition forces in Afghanistan in danger. A Taliban spokesman confirmed they were looking through the documents in order to find the names of Afghans who […]
Adam Serwer
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Fallout.
A lesson on Islamic Law for Newt Gingrich. Latino GOP gubernatorial candidate in Nevada is cool with SB 1070 cuz his kids “look white.” I’m sure this won’t mess them up at all. Vincent Gray cares about process. Not clear what else he cares about. This is the most tone deaf I’ve ever heard the […]
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McArdle On Affirmative Action.
Megan McArdle on Affirmative Action: This is not to make fun of liberals or conservatives who think that more poor kids ought to go to Harvard; that would indeed be nice. But the fact remains that very few kids are going to go to Harvard, no matter how you play around with their admissions formula. […]
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Glenn Beck And Surveillance.
OK, Glenn Beck is being his usual paranoid self here, but he has a point: Let’s say my company, Mercury, where we have internet records for all of our business. We also have all of our emails and everything else. Let’s just say that the government decides that I’m a threat to the United States […]
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Why I’m Not Being Triumphant About The Crack Disparity Bill.
David Dayen on yesterday’s lowering of the crack/powder sentencing disparity from 100:1 to 18:1: But you know what we don’t do a lot of in this country? Reduce sentences. Check out the makeup of the world’s largest prison population and you’ll see what I mean. “Law ‘n’ Order” and “Tough on Crime” remain shibboleths used […]
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Graham Targets Birthright Citizenship.
Sen. Lindsey Graham abandoned the immigration plan he helped write in favor of the climate bill he also helped write and later abandoned. But that doesn’t mean he’s not interested in working on immigration issues; it’s just that his priority now is repealing the 14th Amendment that grants citizenship to everyone born on American soil: […]
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FOX’s Black Viewership: 1.38%.
Are you surprised? The New York Times’ Brian Stelter tweeted that, according to Nielsen Media Research, Fox News has averaged just 29,000 black viewers in primetime so far this television season (9/09-7/10). That represents just 1.38% of its 2.102 million total viewer audience. CNN and MSNBC, meanwhile, both have far more black viewers, both in […]
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Administration Wants To Expand Reach Of National Security Letters.
Civil libertarians have been trying to add more restrictions to the FBI’s National Security Letters since their use exploded after the attacks of September 11th. NSLs, which allow the government to obtain private records from commercial and financial institutions without a warrant as long as they deem them “relevant” to an investigation — with a […]
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Fallout.
WookieeLeaks. Mark Halperin says what few dare to say — “In many quarters of the old media, there is concern about not appearing liberally biased, so stories emanating from the right are given more weight and less scrutiny.” It ain’t all about the filibuster. There’s gonna be a new Avatar animated series. Please don’t let […]
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Civil Libertarians Win A Few.
For once, it’s a happy day for civil libertarians. In Arizona, Judge Susan R. Bolton blocked many of the offending parts of Arizona’s SB 1070 immigration law from going into effect today, including Section 2B, Section 3, and Section 5. The Fair Sentencing Act, which lowers the crack/powder cocaine disparity from 100:1 to 18:1, effectively […]
