Adam Serwer

President Obama hosted an Iftar dinner celebrating the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan yesterday, and used it as an opportunity to urge tolerance and recognize the contributions of Muslim Americans. At one point in his speech, he pointed out that, contrary to conservatives claiming that Muslims collectively attacked America on 9/11, there […]

Matthew Yglesias wonders if Jonathan Podhoretz is too stupid to understand that North Korean style communism and American style democracy are the only political systems available: My baseline assumption with this kind of thing is that we’re looking at dishonesty, but having read Podhoretz’s opus on the greatness of George W Bush it seems plausible […]

Josh Rogin takes a look at Rick Perry’s foreign policy brain trust, and quotes a Perry adviser who says he’d be a “hawk internationalist.” “He will distinguish himself from other Republicans as a hawk internationalist, embracing American exceptionalism and the unique role we must play in confronting the many threats we face,” one foreign policy […]

Following up on yesterday’s conversation about Cornel West and Tavis Smiley, Randall Kennedy reviews Touré’s new book urging an embrace of “post-blackness,” meaning “we are [like President Barack Obama] rooted in, but not restricted by, Blackness.” Kennedy’s book Sellout posited that communities–particularly historically oppressed ones–have a right to police their boundaries, because doing so can […]

With all the talk about federalism these days, the conflict between the states and Obama administration’s secure communities program has gone largely unnoticed. Jurisdictions covered by Secure Communities forward the biometric information of anyone arrested by local law enforcement to Immigration and Customs Enforcement in order to determine whether they’re in the country legally. What […]

In the latest in a series of conservative unintended advertisements for change at the civil rights division of the Justice Department, Pajamas Media have announced that through the results of a Freedom of Information Act Request, they’ve determined that “There are so many aggressive attorneys who previously worked at the ACLU, NAACP, Legal Aid, or […]

Dahlia Lithwick looks at the plaintiffs in one of the Donald Rumsfeld torture civil suits and writes: That it was a brave and right choice may not be enough to rescue this case if and when it ever comes to a trial. (The case may still be appealed to the full Seventh Circuit or to […]

Comedian Steve Harvey has words with Tavis Smiley and Cornel West: The Original King of Comedy, Family Feud host and suit designer didn’t stop there. After reading Smiley’s request that Obama join him for “a roundtable for two or three days on poverty,” Harvey joked, “Who in the hell got 2-3 days for your ass? […]

John Derbyshire may have had a few before deciding to comment on the riots in Britain: Why does the British government not do its duty? Because it is the government of a modern Western nation, sunk like the rest of us in trembling, whimpering guilt over class and race. Through British veins runs the poisonous […]

The Village Voice obtains a set of internal e-mails from Whole Foods that finds the company backing down on its Ramadan-related promotion because it made some folks mad: Saffron Road’s halal items are still for sale in Whole Foods. Yet partners at the stores are directed to tell customers: “Whole Foods Market is not promoting […]