Chris Hayes, on the tax cut deal: “It’s the standard bribery model of legislating that has come to characterize Washington in the era of oligarchy: if you want to put food on the table of the unemployed, you must lavishly wine and dine the CEOs and bankers who laid them off.”
[From The Era Of Oligarchy]
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Opinion: Homegrown terrorists are not just Muslims – Rep. Bennie Thompson – POLITICO.com
Opinion: Homegrown terrorists are not just Muslims – Rep. Bennie Thompson – POLITICO.com. Today’s terrorists do not share a particular ethnic, educational or socioeconomic background. Recently, when state law enforcement agencies were asked to identify terror groups in their states, Muslim extremist groups ranked 11th on a list of 18. Law enforcement agencies identified neo-Nazis, environmental extremists and anti-tax groups as more prevalent than Muslim terrorist organizations. The sophisticated explosive device found along a parade route in Washington on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, an act of domestic terrorism clearly motivated by racist ideology, should prove that other groups are…
The Cost of War
Haroon links to some goodness on Afghanistan. The Atlantic has an email from Afghanistan. Nick Kristof on building schools. The New Yorker on the individual cost of war for an Iraqi veteran. The New Yorker also had a moving photoessay on the cost of war. The photo below is from the series. It’s same photo Colin Powell mentioned in his Obama endorsement.
Sotomayor Nomination
Frank Rice has a good piece on the Sotomayor nomination today, and how it the process highlights how difference is threatening to some people, even though difference is becoming more normative. See also Stewart and Colbert. Unfortunately, while Rich focuses on Latino/a aspects, I think he misses the larger issue of how we all fear difference. For example, this type of fear applies to Muslims, but also emanates from Muslims. Hopefully, the recent experiences with Pres. Obama and Sotomayor help highlight how we fear difference and how we can overcome it.