Tension grows between Calif. Muslims, FBI after informant infiltrates mosque

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]

The 9/10 Project – The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan. We have gone from being the first country that established the principle that prisoners of war should be treated respectfully to a country that operates black sites and sends prisoners to other countries to be tortured–when we don’t torture them ourselves.

Flailing After Muslims – NYTimes.com. On Monday, I spoke by phone with Colleen Kelly, a nurse practitioner from the Bronx whose brother, William Kelly Jr., was killed in the attack on the World Trade Center. She belongs to a group called September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows and is opposed to Mr. King’s hearings. “I was trying to figure out why he’s doing this,” she said, “and I haven’t come up with a good answer.”  She recalled how people were stigmatized in the early years of the AIDS epidemic and the way that stigmas become the focus of attention and…