by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger

After commanding the world's attention in 2010 with its cavalier stance on immigration, the Arizona state legislature is threatening--once again--to dominate national immigration discourse and policy.

This week, Arizona state Senator and Senate President-Elect Russell Pearce (R) spoke candidly with CNN's Jessica Yellin about his plans to introduce a birthright citizenship bill in Arizona this coming January--a move likely to be echoed in the impending Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

Invoking the hysterical "anchor baby" hype that dominated some right-wing circles earlier this year, Pearce intends to pass state legislation denying automatic (or "birthright") citizenship to the the U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants. Though birthright citizenship is constitutionally mandated under the 14th amendment and protected by Supreme Court precedent, it has nevertheless become a rallying cry for number of extremely anti-immigrant Republicans.

And while Pearce pushes the measure in Arizona, an influx of Republican U.S. representatives headed by Steve King (R-IA), the incoming chairman of the subcommittee that oversees immigration, will likely attempt to push a similar bill through Congress, according to Valeria Fernández at New America Media.

The plan, Fernández notes, is to take the contentious issue all the way to the (largely conservative) Supreme Court. But even if the issue makes it that far, it's unlikely that the court would rule in its favor. This issue has reached the Supreme Court twice before (United States v. Wong Kim Arkin in 1898 and Pyler v. Doe in 1982) and in both cases the court maintained that birthright citizenship is constitutionally guaranteed.

Arizona: A model police state

As Pearce pushes the envelope on contentious immigration legislation in 2011, a flock of lawmakers from other states are scrambling to imitate his 2010 trailblazer, SB 1070--the controversial immigration law currently being challenged by the U.S. Department of Justice and a host of public interest organizations. Luke Johnson at the Washington Independent reports that legislators from 25 states are planning to introduce SB 1070 copycat bills next year. While the individual bills vary in scope and detail, they abide by the gist of SB 1070--criminalizing "illegal" immigrants, empowering or requiring law enforcement to ascertain and share the immigration status of individuals based on scant (or no) evidence, etc. Immigrant rights groups are concerned that the copycat bills would lead to racial profiling and the unlawful detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants without criminal records.

While few, if any, of the proposed measures are likely to pass unchallenged, the immense control Republicans now wield over state legislatures is cause for concern--as is the apparently immense influence Arizona lawmakers wield over their conservative neighbors.

Courtesy of the Washington Independent, here's a breakdown of the states proposing copycat measures, and the likely outcomes:

Most likely to pass: Georgia, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina
Maybe: Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia
Less Likely: Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island

Arizona's ethnic studies ban goes into effect

Meanwhile, at the national level, the GOP plans to build support for its hard-line immigration agenda by propagating the fallacious notion that "illegal"immigrants steal American jobs and thus weaken the economy, according to Suzy Khimm at Mother Jones.

Accordingly, incoming House Judiciary Committee chair Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) hopes to expand the E-Verify program--a controversial, federally-managed electronic system that allows employers to check the immigration status of potential employees. The program is supposed to drive down undocumented immigration by helping employers identify and then avoid hiring undocumented immigrants, but it has taken heat lately after a study suggested it was inaccurate 50 percent of the time.

Again, the fate of this immigration initiative could be shaped by what happens in Arizona, where an employer sanctions law requiring businesses to enroll in E-Verify has been challenged by the United States Chamber of Commerce. The case was heard before the Supreme Court earlier this month, with the federal government challenging the law on many of the same grounds upon which it is challenging SB 1070--chiefly that it preempts federal law. If the court rules against the employer sanctions law, the ruling could present serious implications for the proposed expansion of E-Verify which, while voluntary, is already unpopular with businesses concerned about the program's cost and accuracy.

Arizona remains center stage in immigration debate

In 2010, Arizona legislators dominated the national immigration debate. As evidenced by Sarah Kate Kramer's recap of the year in immigration at Feet in 2 Worlds, immigration discourse and policy across the national centered on several key events in Arizona. Most notably, Arizona made history by passing SB 1070 and a host of other controversial bills including bans on ethnic studies and equal opportunity programs. A campaigning Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) reinvented himself--from an immigrant sympathizer and DREAM Act supporter to a hard-line immigration hawk who just wants to "complete the danged fence."

Perhaps the most powerful discourse- and policy-shaping tools wielded by Arizona officials, however, were simply lies. In March, public mania over border violence peaked after Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever erroneously claimed that Arizona rancher Robert N. Krentz Jr. was shot dead by an undocumented immigrant. Then, in June, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer made the outrageous (and widely disproven) claim that law enforcement agencies had found beheaded corpses in the Arizona desert.

Through the crafting of draconian immigration laws and the unabashed spread of misinformation, the Arizona legislature cast itself as a major player in the national immigration debate this year. Having done so, it looms as a a powerful force to be reckoned with in the next.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

More...

I'm a premature grandpa. At age 49, I've got a couple of grandsons, Deshawn and Danari, who are 15 and 13 and you might as well call them "Generation Why?" because they're at that age when they're full of questions. While we were riding the rollercoaster at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk about a week ago, Danari asked me what were the most important lessons I learned when I was a kid? I was tempted to take a page out of All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, but a teenager doesn't want to hear vague platitudes like "clean up your own mess" or "say you're sorry when you hurt somebody." No, what Danari wanted to know is which classes had the most profound impact on me as a leader today? Good question.

It's natural to believe that reading, 'riting, and 'rithmatic are the fundamentals for a successful adulthood as communication and logic are hallmarks of great leadership. And, of course, I learned about the value of teamwork on the playground in P.E. and came face-to-face with winning and losing and good sportsmanship, all of which are essential values of competitive capitalism. But, those classes are too obvious as answers to Danari's question. I spent some time deeply pondering what skills I built in the classroom all those years ago that truly serve me in ways I could never have imagined. Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that three particular junior high school classes have the most relevance to my day-to-day leadership skill set today.

More...

Those lame ducks continued to flap their wings and fly high with another major December achievement. With no media attention or ballyhooing from the Dems, The Medicare and Medicaid Extenders Act (HR 4994) was passed and signed into law by the President on December 15th. This legislation provides a one-year reprieve from a 25% reduction in Medicare payments of doctors' fees that would have otherwise kicked in on January 1, 2011 (although the name of the bill includes Medicaid, no such cuts in that program were included; instead, the bill actually provides for an expansion of some of its programs). An earlier proposed cut of 23% had already been scheduled for December 1. Fortunately, Congress took action in late November to thwart this bloodletting, at least in the short-term.

Such a draconian cut to Medicare payments would surely have resulted in a massive withdrawal of doctors from the program, a significant blow to its health and survival. Doctors stopping their treatment of patients - or suddenly asking for direct payment to continue their services - would have been devastating for the elderly, ill and most vulnerable among us. One can only imagine what would have happened had this bill not passed during the lame duck session, before the Conservative/Tea Party takeover of the House. Their cry would have been, "The deficit, the deficit!" and their cheering would have been deafening as their decades-old dream of ending one of our most successful entitlements came ever-closer to realization. We must be ever vigilant in protecting these programs, and Dems must start fighting to prevent similar cuts from occurring next year when this extension ends. Otherwise, 43 million seniors and disabled, along with hundreds of thousands of doctors, will be severely impacted.

More...

Would a modern educated society allow their children to eat rat poison? I was shocked to find out that we do. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reported last week that 10,000 toddlers are poisoned every year from the ingestion of rat poison; a sobering statistic that makes even a toxicologist who feels like he's seen it all stop in his tracks. You don't need to know the details regarding which chemicals are in rat poison and what they do to a toddler when ingested. It's obvious that this is a horrid chemical accident that shouldn't be allowed in one home, much less 10,000 annually. Fortunately many of these accidents are discovered soon enough for an antidote or stomach pump to work. But what kind of thinking allows this to occur? I'm not suggesting that anyone would stand by and watch a toddler break into a rat poison bait station. But yet the makers and the regulators know this is exactly what will happen in some percentage of homes, and it is allowed to go on.

The reason put forward is that the poison is needed in a rat infestation because rats carry disease and their bite can lead to all sorts of infections, not to mention trauma. The pesticide industry points to the case of the mother sleeping in bed with her 8-month-old to protect him from the rats at night and she smothered him -- isn't rat poison a better solution than that? The poison has to be sweet tasting so rats will eat it all up, but so will a little kid or pet if they find the pellets. Attempts by the government to get rat poison makers to spice it with bitter flavors so that it won't taste like candy to a toddler have been met with resistance by the industry -- it'll render the bait ineffective is the claim. And of course, there is the retort that the package warns against leaving it where a child or pet could reach it -- so it's really your fault if your kid succumbs to their product. The trouble with that logic is that kids and pets are very resourceful creatures who may outsmart adults who may not be thinking so clearly when overwhelmed by a rat problem, amidst who knows how many other emergencies. We shouldn't be placing a loaded gun in the hands of a child. Similarly we shouldn't be placing rat poison in the hands of a general public in which some members don't read labels or follow directions or even speak English. This is an environmental justice issue in which the urban poor are disproportionately affected -- 83 percent of the poisoned kids are African American or Latino. But it can happen in any family that brings rat poison into the home.

More...

Men are in the news lately -- have you noticed? I read with interest the Sep. 10 Newsweek piece "Men's Lib," about "reimagining masculinity" for our modern age, and I read with equal interest Lisa Belkin's piece in the Oct. 24 New York Times Magazine, "Calling Mr. Mom?" which explored the same topic and cited the same Swedish studies and enlightened public policy concerning paternity leave, among other things. Hooray for Sweden. Clearly, men are on our minds, for more reasons than you'd think. I've been meaning to speak up on the subject, so I'll take this opportunity.

For several years now, I've been inching toward compassion for the poor slobs, for men in general. Perhaps I should say American men, because that's the species with which I'm most familiar. I grew up in the time of women's liberation, just after the early feminists had cleared the way for me to assume I'd enjoy equal opportunities and respect, have a career and, if I felt like it, a marriage and children, too -- and financial independence. So I did all that, and somewhere along the way, I got to feeling exhausted, and chronically pissed off at my then-husband for not doing more, managing more, caring more, remembering more. ("Did you buy milk, honey?" I'd ask. "Oh, no, I forgot," he'd say. Grrr.) I know lots of couples who are stuck in this blame dynamic, and I have a feeling that plenty of others know what I'm talking about.

More...

In May, 2009, at the New York press conference for the announcement of the Man Booker International Prize shortlist (I chaired the jury), I remarked that I considered Mario Vargas Llosa's 1981 novel "The War of the End of the World" "the book 'War and Peace' wanted to be." I was half joking of course (as always), but I did hope that somehow this line would land as a blurb on all future publications of "The War of The End of the World," because it was a novel that I had found to be so humane, so beautifully written, so wise, and so compelling that I thought it should take its place among the best of the best. Maybe now that Vargas Llosa has won the Nobel Prize, it will.

The amazing thing about "The War of the End of the World" is that it looks at religious cults and end-of-the-world figures in such an insightful way that the reader comes from the novel feeling as though the last word has been said about this subject. Perhaps the greatest pleasure of the novel is that men and women of all types -- soldiers, criminals, landowners, housewives, beggars, intellectuals, priests, believers -- and all social classes are viewed with compassion and interest. No character is dismissed or overlooked, and the result is a tragic celebration of a very human thing, the sweep of an avid belief through a society, and the change and damage it leaves behind. Is the Savior figure in this novel meant to represent Jesus? Or Jim Jones? Vargas Llosa isn't saying, and that makes it all the better.

More...

Here's the question: are we returning to the repressive days of Joe McCarthy? I read today in Nicholas D. Kristof's column in The New York Times of the Republican plan for a congressional committee to investigate American Muslims. Like the Reds back in the 1950s, "they" are everywhere, spying on us and infiltrating our government in their effort to sabotage the American way of life. We must protect ourselves against our internal enemies at all costs...

Artists, of course, are thrust unwillingly into the front line of today's cultural battle, prime targets for the kind of philistine paranoia that characterized the shameful McCarthy era. Two current headline stories remind us that the Constitution -- with its protection of freedom of speech -- is wielded as a weapon by the righteous right only when it suits their purposes. In Washington, DC, the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institute has capitulated to conservative religious and political pressure, removing from its current exhibition a videotape by David Wojnarowicz entitled "A Fire in My Belly" (see it here.) The video includes a sequence with ants crawling over the image of a crucified Christ...

More...

In times of great decision we look to those who possess the insight and the wisdom we desire. My time of great decision was the summer of 2009, and I was preparing for UC Santa Cruz in the fall, but was at a loss for how to occupy my time there. As I had become sober a year and a half prior to that time, I felt a certain amount of discomfort at the thought of constantly surrounding myself with drunken girls and those obnoxious fraternities with their faux-hawks and their Keystone Light. However, I did not consider the possibility of turning to my academics as a positive occupant of time. Instead, I decided to turn to one of the greatest sources of knowledge in this day and age: Jersey Shore. I turned to VH1 desperately, and my prayers were answered by Vinny. "GTL. Gym. Tanning. Laundry. That's how you make the guidos." Almost correct, Vinny. That's how you make the college version of me.

It began as a challenge, a sort of proving ground to my parents in my mind. Years prior, in my drug addiction, they had told me that my best shot at a college education was at a community college, and certainly not UC Santa Cruz, long since my university of choice. So when after years of turmoil, several high schools, and a handful of treatment centers, I finally received the acceptance letter, I was thoroughly ready to prove myself. But such intentions were lost upon my move-in date, when I promptly realized that I was more intrigued by the social aspects of college than the educational.

More...

The Wolfman, Salt, Knight and Day, The A-Team, and The Town. What do these films have in common? Not too much, except I saw all of them in theaters, all on my own dime and (more importantly) on my own time. I enjoyed The A-Team and kinda-sorta liked Knight and Day and Salt. But the one constant is that they all came to DVD/Blu Ray with extensive 'Extended Edition/Director's Cut' versions. The whole 'unrated/extended cut' thing has been around since the beginning of DVD. Usually it amounts to an R-rated comedy (Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, The Hangover, Role Models, etc) or horror film (every single Saw picture) tossing in three minutes of 'extreme' material that could have allegedly gotten the film an NC-17. But this recent wave is different. These are old-fashioned action pictures and star-vehicles, the kind that are allegedly struggling to find an audience, yet they are consistently mocking their theatrical audiences by unleashing more substantial versions on the home video platform just months after theatrical release.

Millennium Films have announced today that they are appealing the R-rating that was handed down to the David Schwimmer-directed thriller Trust. The film was rated R for 'the assault of a teenage girl, language, sexual content and some violence'. The gist of the appeal is that the film, which concerns parents (Clive Owen and Catherine Keener) reactions when their teenage daughter is sexually assaulted by someone she met online, should serve as a cautionary tale about the dangers of kids playing around online. First of all, if this is the kind of film that kids should see and discuss with their parents, would the film not benefit from an 'R' rating, which would in fact require parents to see it with their kids? More importantly, we should be asking if the film (which of course none of us have seen) or at least the marketing of said film is perhaps overstating the case. Point being, it's easy to imagine your kid being tricked online into meeting a stranger at the mall and getting attacked. But how often does that actually happen? Not as much as you think.

Progressives have always had mixed emotions about breastfeeding. We support a healthy diet and natural living, and breastfeeding is as natural as it gets. We also have a low tolerance for chemical additives, including those found in infant formula. On the other hand, breastfeeding has been used to oppress women. Feminists recognized this in the 1960s and labeled infant formula "liberation in a can." With formula, daddy could get up in the middle of the night for feedings and mom could get some sleep, and the infant could be fed while in child care during the day, so mom could work for pay.

Since then, moms have gone to work in record numbers (see Figure 4), while the U.S. government and advocacy groups have gone on a mission to promote breastfeeding. The movements have clashed and, so far, work seems to have won: We have yet to reach the modest Healthy Families 2010 target of 50 percent of mothers breastfeeding until an infant is at least six months of age. Some folks actually revel in the clash, hoping to reverse women's economic gains by sending the message that good mothers opt out of employment (as documented by Pamela Stone). Breastfeeding promotion provides a powerful tool in these efforts. Of course, when this crowd wins, women become more financially dependent on men: Stephen Rose and Heidi Hartmann found that women's hourly wages drop 22 percent for even one year out of employment, and drop even more steeply for more time out (see Table 2).

More...

Once upon a time, like maybe 2-1/2 years ago, just as the financial crisis was starting to deliver a series of swift kicks to the stock market's nether regions, CNBC was -- and had been, for years -- a terrific, informative, "must-watch" business news channel. Squawk Box in the morning was a fun, funny, and informative pre-market potpourri of economic and company-specific business news, information, features, and light banter. Power Lunch was two hours of the same, at mid-day -- different cast of characters, same mind-set. Market close brought a recap of the day's events, plus post-market earnings announcements. Throughout the day there was a procession of talking heads, usually analyst sell side and usually bullish, but that was to be expected. Listen with a dose of skepticism, but maybe get some good ideas. And stay in touch with the latest trends and company news. CNBC, Wall Street Journal, Barron's, Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser, all manna in an investor's paradise.

Then something happened. I don't know exactly what caused it. But CNBC changed. For the worse, and hasn't looked back. Maybe several somethings happened. Not sure. Maybe it was the shattering of investor confidence in Wall Street, the devastating losses to folks' 401ks, despite daily insistence by the talking heads that the financials were a screaming buy and the sell-off was overdone, and thus a big ratings downturn. Maybe it was the proliferation of infotainment channels on cable tv, where to survive you needed an edge, conflict, confrontation, shouting -- not just talking, but shouting -- heads, to be noticed in an increasingly crowded media landscape. Maybe, more specifically, it was growing competition from Fox Business News, which epitomized the new, opinionated, strident, "my way or the highway", brass knuckles form of business journalism. But having swallowed the old Fnn 20 years ago and solidified its position as the preeminent voice in TV business programming since then, in its mid-life, about two years ago, CNBC morphed into something I no longer recognize most of the time.

More...

A number of years ago I did my doctoral research on the balance between professional achievement and successful family life, using academic physicians as my study group. Not surprisingly, the most successful medical professors in my sample group -- those with tenure, extensive research, and national awards -- also tended to have the most instances of divorce and estrangement from children. Naturally, none of these highly successful people had consciously chosen to sacrifice their families in order to advance their careers. Instead, they had made hundreds of small tradeoffs over the years -- such as staying in the lab instead of attending a child's school concert. It was the accumulation of these small choices that seemed to gradually tip their lives one way or the other.

I was reminded of this subject when I heard last week that Jeff Kindler had suddenly resigned as CEO of Pfizer, at least partly because the stresses of the job were affecting his family life. (I admit that there may have been other reasons for Kindler's resignation, although we may never know for sure. For this discussion, let's just assume that job stress was a factor.) By all reports -- and gathered from some personal experience -- Kindler is very devoted to his family, but also worked hard to achieve the success of becoming a CEO. And after spending more than four years working almost non-stop at the top of Pfizer, Kindler seems to have realized that it is very difficult to have both.

More...

Relations between the U.S. and Turkey have always been dynamic and reflective of the historical moment in time. As the release of classified U.S. government cables by WikiLeaks has most recently demonstrated, turbulence in U.S.-Turkey relations should be expected in the short-term and ignored only at both countries' peril. The readjustments in the half-century old U.S.-Turkish alliance chronicled through the State Department documents leaked thus far are critical for the long-term health for one of the transatlantic community's most dynamic and important partnerships, particularly at this moment in time as they have reached a tipping point. U.S. diplomats' skepticism about Turkey's dependability as a transatlantic partner and warnings about the leadership in Ankara should be taken seriously, but it would be foolish to write-off the strategic role that Turkey has played and continues to play in a critically important region. If U.S.-Turkish relations are going to weather this latest storm, it will need to involve sustained political leadership on both sides of the Atlantic and a cooperative approach to adapting this historic alliance to the needs of a new Turkey and a transformed America.

The information contained in the leaks have centered on unflattering portrayals of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan as being an authoritarian and corrupt Islamist who is surrounded by a closeted Muslim fraternity of advisors where he is worshiped as the Sultan or "Tribune of Anatolia." Foreign Minister Ahmet DavutoÄŸlu is similarly described as a dangerous "Neo Ottomanist" Muslim philosopher who has little to no understanding of politics beyond Ankara. Unfortunately, these latest revelations come at precisely the worst possible time in U.S.-Turkish relations that are already reeling from a deficit of trust and severe differences in approach, strategy, and tone on everything from Iran and Israel to NATO missile defense. Secretary of State Clinton's first meeting after the release was with Davutoglu who pointedly welcomed a WikiLeaks in Ankara as a chance to show that Turkish foreign policy does not engage in "double-speak." Erdogan, meanwhile, shrugged off most of the cables, but reacted strongly to personal accusations of corruptions involving alleged Swiss bank accounts which he threatened to sue former US diplomats over. The political points scored by Erdogan and Davutoglu over an apologetic and embarrassed Washington have registered with their Anatolian conservative constituencies that are now lashing out at their opposition both domestically and internationally.

More...

by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger

As a floundering Congress repeatedly impedes the passage of widely supported immigration measures like the DREAM Act, reform advocates are refocusing their efforts and calling on President Barack Obama to declare a moratorium on deportations.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), whose impassioned support of immigrant rights landed him in jail earlier this year, is at the forefront of that charge, reports Braden Goyette at Campus Progress. Joining a chorus of immigration reform groups, Gutierrez is asking for moratorium: "The President will tell us we need Republican votes in order to pass legislation, and he's correct," Gutierrez told a raucous crowd of New York immigrants last month. "But let me tell you something. With the executive stroke of that pen, he can stop the deportation and the destruction of our families."

The deportation dragnet

The administration's amped up efforts to detain and deport greater numbers of undocumented immigrants is understandably contentious among immigrant rights advocates. As Goyette notes, at least 6.6 million mixed-status families stand to be directly affected by increased immigration enforcement, and nearly 100,000 citizen children have already seen their parents--lawful permanent residents--deported by the government.

To make matters worse, individuals are being deported without demonstrable regard for clean records, mitigating circumstances or even legal residency, in spite of the administration's assurances to the contrary. Alina Das, a fellow at NYU's immigration law clinic who was interviewed by Goyette, sums it up this way:

"Once you're in the system it often does not matter if you've lived here since childhood, if you worked and paid taxes your entire life, if you gave back to the community and served in the military. The laws are so draconian that immigration judges are not able to consider these factors in many cases."

ICE under fire for netting innocents

The legal system's rigidity is further exacerbated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)'s questionable practices, which have resulted in the unlawful detention and deportations of scores of immigrants. The consequences of ICE's overreliance on local law enforcement and its apparently indiscriminate tagging of undocumented immigrants are making headlines and raising prominent eyebrows.

The Filipino Express, via New America Media, reports that immigration courts are rejecting 31 percent of deportation cases filed by ICE--a six-point increase since 2009. In larger cities, the rejection rate is as high as 70 percent, suggesting that ICE is increasingly detaining and processing people who have just cause to remain in the country.

ICE's credibility on the matter has deteriorated so much that last week a federal judge ordered the agency to release previously withheld documents related to a controversial enforcement program called Secure Communities, which has netted a number of non-criminal immigrants, including domestic violence victims. Several localities have tried to opt out of participating in the contentious program--including Santa Clara and San Francisco Counties in California, Arlington, Va., and Washington D.C.--but ICE has waffled on allowing them to do so. The documents ordered for release should shed light on the issue.

ColorLines' Seth Freed Wessler reports that last week's ruling was the second of its kind made against ICE:

In July, a federal court ordered the release of all government documents related to Secure Communities, following a public information request by Uncover the Truth, a coalition of civil rights and immigrant rights groups. The government released only some documents, which revealed that the program had resulted in the deportation of tens of thousands of non-citizens with no criminal convictions at all, or with convictions for low-level things like traffic violations.

The dark side of detention

The indiscriminate roundup of undocumented immigrants can have grave consequences--particularly when the immigration enforcement system is overly outsourced and over capacity.

While we've highlighted several cases of detention centers run amok in the past, Forrest Wilder at the Texas Observer has been following the case of a particularly horrifying incident at the Reeves County Detention Center near Pecos, Texas.

Two years ago, when the facility's remarkably poor conditions provoked immigrant detainees to demand a meeting with the Mexican consulate, 1,200 detainees rioted and commandeered the facility, costing more than $1 million in damages. The impetus: The arguably preventable death of Jesus Manuel Galindo, a 32-year-old epileptic Mexican citizen who had lived in the United States since he was 13 and was locked up for "illegal re-entry" into the country:

Galindo's death set off a huge riot at the Reeves County Detention Center, the world's largest privately-run prison. It was the first of two riots in protest of poor conditions, especially medical care that the prisoners claimed was literally killing people. At the time of his death from an epileptic seizure, Galindo had been locked up in the prison's administrative segregation unit for a month, possibly as punishment for his persistent medical complaints.

Wilder further reports that, last week, the ACLU and two El Paso attorneys filed suit against officials and administrators of the ill-reputed facility, stating that "the utter disregard shown by RCDC prison and medical staff to Galindo's repeated, beseeching, well-founded expressions of fear for his own personal safety bordered on sadistic."

Galindo's case is not unique among immigrant detainees in the United States. Immigrant detainees suffer myriad abuses and injustices while their cases are processed and the administration's increasing emphasis on enforcement only exacerbates the problem.

With the DREAM Act stuck in sentatorial limbo, the dire circumstances of hundreds of thousands of immigrants should compel President Obama to take action where Congress will not.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about immigration by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Diaspora for a complete list of articles on immigration issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, environment, and health care issues, check out The Audit, The Mulch, and The Pulse<. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

More...

When trends seem to come on in this day and age, they seem to come fast and intense and then wither away, especially musical trends. One of those trends has been the rapid growing genre of surf rock. Not the surf rock that your parents and grandparents are accustomed to. This is not The Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, The Surfaries or Dick Dale and His Deltones, this is surf rock done indie style. Just like the classic acts they are inspired by the summer and everything that makes for fun in the sun, however, the surf rock bands of today go a bit deeper and show more emotion. They take that vibe of the classic acts and mix it with inspiration from bands like The Smiths, Stone Roses, Weezer and The Strokes.

Where and when did this neo-style originate? Or resurrect itself in this new way? This happens in music, always has and always will. When The Strokes arrived in 2001, with their massive success, every band on the scene was a garage-rock band that began with "The." Though, no one really knows for sure where surf rock reinvented itself and resurrected itself, one can say it could be due to the massive success Vampire Weekend received after their 2008 debut. Vampire Weekend came in and brought in a new style of preppy rock, singing about Cape Cod in the summertime. Since then, an abundance of bands have come through bending the style and entering the door that Vampire Weekend opened. Though the bands may not sound like Vampire Weekend, they certainly carry the same vibe. Bands such as The Drums, Surfer Blood, Wavves, Best Coast, Soft Pack, The Postelles and Tennis to name a few. The genre has even spread across the Atlantic and into the UK with bands like Male Bonding, The Vaccines, The Heartbreaks, Doll and the Kicks and even in France with rising lo-fi surf rockers Le Femme.

More...

As we approach mid-December, our thoughts turn to buying presents for our loved ones. There are less than two weeks until Christmas, and there is, as usual, far too much to get done. Buy and trim the tree, prepare the holiday feasts, and, for law professors, grade those Torts exams. But even in the off-season -- or especially in the off-season -- baseball clubs are busy with their own Christmas shopping. Who might our club acquire that would make a difference on the field during the 2011 Championship Season?

The Boston Red Sox were first into the department stores this December with two blockbuster acquisitions -- one by trade, one by free agency (not to be confused with "one if by land and two if by sea," a common phrase when walking around Boston Common). The Red Sox signed two stellar ballplayers to long-term and expensive contracts. (I guess there was money left over after John Henry purchased the Liverpool club in the English Premier League.) Adrian Gonzalez (7 years -- $154 million) has long been an object of desire for the crimson hose. He will add power to a line-up that has just not been the same since Manny Ramirez flaked off to LA. Carl Crawford (7 years -- $142 million) has mostly been a constant annoyance for the Sox as a stalwart member of the division rival Tampa Bay Rays. Once on base, something that Crawford did early and often, he annoyed the opposing hurler until taking off for second base. His work in the outfield certainly qualifies him to patrol the Green Monsta at Fenway. There is good reason for the Sox faithful to be counting their blessings and counting the days until pitchers and catchers arrive in Fort Myers.

More...

Loose lips sink art sales... well, that won't ever appear on a poster, but the art trade seems convinced that secrecy is a vital component of making deals. Take the auction houses, for instance, which keep a lot of secrets. There is a "reserve" price -- the unstated amount below which the consignor will not sell the lot --for many of the more expensive objects in a sale, and phantom (or "chandelier") bids that the auctioneer announces and records in order to get the bidding up to that reserve. The auction house may have advanced or loaned money to a bidder in order to help that person acquire an artwork up for sale or brought in a third party (usually a private dealer or collector) to guarantee a certain price required by a consignor. That's all hush-hush: None of the other bidders in the room (or online or on the telephone) will be told anything about what they are up against. And, of course, the auction houses hardly ever reveal the identities of buyers.

Frustrated by the lack of openness? Commercial art galleries aren't much better, as they rarely list the prices of artworks on display (one may ask for a price list, which at most high-end galleries is rarely available), and it is not clear that the art is even for sale. Particular pieces may be "on hold" for important private collectors or museums that will get back to the dealer eventually if they have the money and interest. Having ready money and interest doesn't get anyone the art he or she wants, although if one buys enough other things to prove a commitment to that gallery the collector may earn a place on a waiting list for the work of such-and-such artist (and who is on that waiting list is also privileged information). The rest of us just walk out of the gallery wondering, What was the purpose of that exhibition?

More...

There is nothing natural about the bizarre tale that inspired director Andrew Jarecki to make his new film All Good Things. And yet, at a luncheon at Michael's today, introducing his star, Kirsten Dunst -- in an Oscar-worthy performance as a doomed young woman whose disappearance 18 years ago remains a mystery -- he claims that her naturalness drew him to her, signing her on even before he got Ryan Gosling to play the husband. Of course, the director of the documentary, Capturing the Friedmans, is no stranger to the ways reality can out spook the imagination. Taking a headline-grabbing story of the real cross-dressing Robert Durst, replete with unsolved crimes, Andrew Jarecki's creation is like a true-life novelization that would make Truman Capote proud -- or maybe even jealous.

Looking radiant despite having just arrived from San Francisco where she wrapped her role as Camille in the much-anticipated film of the iconic Kerouac novel, On the Road, Dunst told me this role provided the challenge of having to stay believably with a man who becomes increasingly more violent. She praised Ryan Gosling's performance, noting that often actors portray only the creepy side of a creep. From the beginning of their on-screen relationship, when as newlyweds they go off to Vermont to open a natural foods store called All Good Things, Gosling shows a quiet charm. You wish his father, played by the irresistible Frank Langella had not prevailed, luring the couple back to the family business in Manhattan real estate. Langella said at the movie's premiere at Buddakan last week, this is his year for playing aging Jewish men, referring of course to his part in Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps.

More...

A pivotal theme in current Islamic political discourse is a demand for justice, a key tenet of the Quran. A popular complaint in Islamic political argument is discrimination against Muslims in the west such as the ban of the veil in European countries, minarets in Switzerland or racial profiling in many western countries. Unfortunately, there is a conspicuous lack of looking inwards to practices within Muslim countries. Muslims from all over the world have just completed the annual pilgrimage, the Hajj in Saudi Arabia. The Hajj represents a critical pillar of Islam and is supposed to represent a universal gathering of Muslims, which transcends race, ethnicity, color or any other distinction. Muslims are supposed to meet in the sacred precincts surrounding the holy city of Mecca as equals wearing the same simple clothing meant to symbolize perfect brotherhood, where individuals or groups do not see themselves as separate entities and differences of lineage, tribe or race have no bearing.

The experiences of the Hajj are very different depending on which part of the world you originate from. If you hail from Saudi Arabia or the Gulf states, you will perform the hajj in relative luxury and privilege, which is denied to Muslims from the sub-continent, Africa or the rest of the world. Those from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states have a different Hajj based on luxurious accommodations, and preferential treatment in performing the rituals. The latest egregious practice is the high-speed rail service, which transports the pilgrims from Mecca to the sacred sites where the rituals of the Hajj are performed. The train is reserved only for Saudis and citizens from the Gulf countries. Citizens from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries can be transported to the holy sites within a few minutes. For others, they will have to take the bus or walk which could take many hours each day. I cannot think of any other place in the world today that practices such crass racism. Imagine a train in the United States that states no Arabs -- just people from the west -- can ride in. The real tragedy is the lack of outrage from Muslims.

More...

I am Jewish. Even though Jewishness really doesn't and shouldn't lie on a spectrum, people have called me "very Jewish." I go to synagogue. I work at a synagogue, leading services with a rabbi. Sometimes people in the subway ask me if I'm Jewish. The Jews handing out Shabbat candles and propaganda booklets on campus used to stop me every time I walked by. I attribute this to my big nose and curly hair. Judaism is a much more diverse group than it's given credit for, but I just happen to fit a lot of the old ashkenazic stereotypes. This results in me getting checked out a lot by yeshiva students, especially when I'm wearing a skirt that covers my knees. I also once got harassed by a bunch of giant, blond guys in a parking lot by the beach. They kept yelling things about money at me. In my bikini, shaking from the cold and from anger, I screamed back at them. I don't know what I said.

I'm getting married in less than a month, to a man everyone assumes is Jewish. His name sounds Jewish. He looks like he could pass for Jewish. He comes to services, and he sings the prayers. But he is not Jewish. He grew up in a family that celebrated Christmas but didn't otherwise participate in Christian practices. He doesn't bother to define himself religiously or call himself an atheist. He isn't interested in entering the debate, or getting tangled in all the messy rules of identification. When he moved across the country for a job and couldn't celebrate Christmas with his family, he worked through Christmas day instead.

More...

After the high voltage Playboy/Madame Bovary bash on Wednesday, I made a return to the House that Waris (temporarily) built under the Highline on Sunday evening for his closing event with Wes Anderson. The occasion was twofold: to celebrate the Criterion Collection's Special Edition DVD release of Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited (Waris himself plays a role both in the feature and in "Hotel Chevalier," the Natalie Portman short which precedes the film); and to enjoy the first-ever public showing of original artwork and select reproductions by Eric Chase Anderson (brother of Wes), who signed worked specifically for the special guests in attendance.

The vibe was considerably more mellow than Wednesday's all night affair, but the crowd was no less impressive. Harvey Keitel, Cynthia Rowley, and Terence Koh were among the intimate group of boldfacers and industry types who enjoyed the Belvedere cocktails and perused the tea room. I confess that I did not get a good look at the tea room on Wednesday night, so I was glad to have the opportunity to check it out before it existed no more (sigh). The selection of items for sale was eclectic in the best sense of the term: a great selection of Assouline publications, among them Kelly Bensimon's "American Style;" a wide collection of Criterion DVD releases; some very creative hardware courtesy of Cynthia Rowley; olive oil from Bar Pitti sold to the public for the first time; Cafe Cluny granola; and, last but not least, a selection of 7 types of tea, sold by the pot. One of them was memorably called the "Darjeeling First Flush Tea." For those less adventurous types, there was the requisite Green Tea.

More...

As the air becomes crisp and we see the vibrant falling leaves around us, often people of faith turn their attention toward giving. Even while we get caught in the frenzy of holiday decorating and menu planning, we think about how to share the abundance of the year and how to teach our kids to give. As the children in our lives construct their holiday wish lists, we wonder how we can enliven them with a spirit of generosity. In a time of rampant consumerism, when boys and girls are bombarded with advertisements enticing them to dream about what sorts of presents might wait for them under the tree, we wonder, how do we teach kids to share? How do we remind them of those who don't have as much?

As we were trying to nurture a bit of generosity in our congregation, we talked to Chef Steve Badt of Miriam's Kitchen. Miriam's is located in the basement of our church. They provide a hot, nutritious breakfast and dinner as well as a full range of social services to our homeless guests in Washington, D.C. During this time of year, the children in our congregation actively support Miriam's through Fannie Mae's Help the Homeless Mini-Walk and by having a Thanksgiving fruit collection. In the spring they'll continue their support as they plant an herb garden for Miriam's. The staff at Miriam's is innovative and insightful and Chef Steve (who is also a dad) is particularly gifted in understanding how to get children excited about the important work of sharing. He gave us some wonderful ideas.

More...

Sometimes it helps to step back and view a whole nation as if it were a person. Right now we are told that America is in crisis, and solutions are being offered from every quarter. When a person is in crisis, the search for a solution runs into conflict and confusion. The worst scenarios run through one's imagination. Reason wars with emotion. We see the same in America today. The impulse to throw reason out the window is expressed through Sarah Palin, who makes a very nice living, thank you very much, by throwing tantrums in public. The impulse to blame somebody, anybody is expressed through the Tea Party. The cool-headed police officer or firefighter who comes to your house to handle an emergency is expressed through President Obama. As for Congress, it expresses the country's refusal to accept that a crisis exists, since for all its hot air, Congress is dedicated to doing the same thing it has always done.

Yet people do get out of crises and so do countries. They do so by discovering that they are stronger, better, and more resilient than they ever thought they were. The first rule is that when they fall, souls bounce, they don't break. I've put this in spiritual terms because leaving religion aside, spirituality has always been about the endurance of the soul and the possibilities of a higher vision. When terrible things happen in their lives, people don't immediately find a spiritual solution. They first go into shock, numbness, denial, and fear. These forces take time to dissipate. It's a slow process but a reliable one. The downturn of 2008 is fresh in everyone's mind; the backlash of the midterm elections evidenced just how shocked and afraid the public still is.

More...

The Israeli government must still approve the proposed United States-Israeli agreement to freeze settlement construction in the West Bank in exchange for a U.S. offer of three billion worth of military hardware, including stealth fighter jets. If Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu succeeds in obtaining cabinet approval, the parties will have 90 days to focus primarily on reaching an agreement on borders. Only an agreement on borders would enable negotiations to proceed by delineating which of the settlements will be incorporated into Israel proper, and which would not. The resumption of Israeli construction would then be limited to those areas that are considered part of Israel proper. The success or failure of the Obama administration's peacemaking effort hinges on whether or not sufficient progress is made to induce the Palestinian and Israeli leadership to continue with the negotiations beyond the 90-day freeze.

Unfortunately, the likelihood that such an accord will be reached is slim. Any agreement would require major concessions on the part of both sides. However, it is unclear whether the current Israeli government can muster a three-month settlement freeze, albeit in exchange for a compelling American offer, and then agree on a border that relinquishes 95 percent or more of the West Bank. Shas and Israel Beiteinu in particular will object, as will right-wing rebels within the Likud party who are appealing to Shas to oppose rather than abstain from the cabinet vote on the freeze. Shas has stated that it will only abstain if it obtains a letter from the United States ensuring that construction can resume in Jerusalem, and that the freeze would not be renewed on the 91st day. With such coalition partners, it is difficult, if not impossible, to be optimistic about the prospects for genuine movement toward peace at this stage.

More...

I've been agonizing for some time over how as a country we've catapulted so far beyond George Orwell's 1984, which taught us that rhetoric could be constructed to match a reality exactly opposite of the slogans uttered. We're now to the point that up is truly down, at least in political "discourse," if you could call it that. Into my mailbox comes the tome below, from a thoughtful public servant who has worked for the greater good for going on 30 years. Here's what he has to say about the Principles Of Republicanism:

What Republicans are not.--Republicans generally describe themselves as "conservatives," but they haven't been truly conservative for decades. Republicans want to conserve some things they like and don't want to conserve other things they don't like. So the term "conservative" - which suggests a general predisposition to conserve things as they are - doesn't fit. It doesn't explain what they want to conserve and what they don't. Look at their record: Republicans don't want to conserve the environment - they want to allow corporations to consume (the opposite of conserve) natural resources to enhance short-term corporate profits. They want to dismantle - not conserve - the social contract that has bound Americans together for the past 70 years in the form of Social Security, public education, publicly built highways, unemployment insurance, sound regulation of the financial system, and the economic safety net for poor Americans. They don't want to conserve the balanced, progressive tax system that has made possible the American Dream for middle-class Americans and distinguished us from third-world countries run by economic elites. Most significantly, they favor a radical restructuring of the relationship between the rights of corporations and the rights of actual human beings, that would astonish the founding fathers, who viewed corporations as a narrow legal construct designed to raise capital for building canals, not an out-of-control leviathan spending multi-millions to buy elections.

More...

A serious conversation has begun about making it possible for the Senate to function as our Constitution envisaged -- as a part of a balanced structure, not a complete roadblock to preventing the Congress from playing its role as a legislative initiator. Led by veteran senator Tom Harkin and sophomore Tom Udall, a group of Democratic senators -- with one incoming Republican (Indiana's Dan Coats) joining them -- have begun calling for reform of the Senate's paralyzing rules, by which a tiny number of senators, sometimes just one, can prevent action.

A variety of proposals are on the table, including a creative one by Oregon senator Jeff Merkley that would require that if the minority wanted to filibuster, it would have to do so the old-fashioned way -- by remaining on the Senate floor to prevent action. It's far from clear how deep the reforms can be and still muster the necessary 51 votes to change the rules at the beginning of the next Congress -- but it is clear that this is the strongest effort we've had for reform in decades.

The danger posed to America by the present rules gets starker and starker. In the first week of the lame-duck Congressional session alone, we had South Carolina senator Jim DeMint threaten to filibuster a vital arms-control agreement with Russia, even if his fellow Republicans were satisfied that it enhances America's national security. Never before has the filibuster been used to block vital defense legislation. And earlier in the week all 42 current Senate Republicans signed a letter in which they explicitly used the threat of a filibuster to blackmail the Senate leadership into giving them their way by extending tax cuts for millionaires and blowing a huge hole in the federal treasury. Once again, no party has ever threatened to block all  legislation, however badly needed, to get their way on one bill -- and it is the current Senate rules that make such blackmail possible.

Of course back in February it became clear that the Republicans would filibuster almost everything this year in order to generate voter anger at a do-nothing Congress  -- and it appears to have paid off for them.

So the real issue now is whether the Democrats can recognize that the filibuster has now become a weapon of political terror, and that you cannot afford to compromise with political terrorists any more than you can with violent ones. As the Minneapolis Star Tribune put it, the current Senate rules block the will of the voters. If the voters have elected 51 senators who want to vote on a nuclear arms treaty, then a minority should not be able to prevent those senators from doing their job -- which is to vote.

More...

Recently, friends of mine broke up after twelve years of marriage. The three of us met during college and became fast pals. By graduation the two of them started dating and few years after that they tied the knot. From the moment the two of them got married, I spoke to the wife more often, but only because she was in charge of their social calendar. Truth be told, I preferred the husband to the wife. There was always a natural, quick-witted banter between the two of us, something the wife couldn't keep up with, no matter how hard she tried. And she did. This happens sometimes with couples, you end up gravitating towards one partner over the other. I'm not saying I didn't like the wife, I did, I just had a richer connection with the husband, which is why I was so devastated to find out last week over lunch with the wife, that they were not only calling it quits, but that it had already been decided who would get me in the divorce. Her.

The news was casually delivered to me while the wife intensely studied a Chinese menu, vacillating between ordering the soup dumplings or the sesame chicken. "So the good news is that I got you in the divorce. Dumplings it is!" and she excitedly handed the menu to the waiter. "It just all sounds so yummy!" Unable to speak, I stared at her with a look of shock. She gets me? How did that happen? What does that even mean? He gets the house in the Hamptons and she gets to keep my friendship? Don't I have a say in this? Apparently the answer was no.

More...

by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger

The most recent round of United Nations-led climate change negotiations began this week in Cancun, and although international expectations are muted this year, the stakes are still high. As Mother Jones' Kate Sheppard explains,"The 2010 meeting could make or break the future of global negotiations."

This is the sixteenth Conference of the Parties, convened by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). After the tepid results of last year's conference in Copenhagen, when a last-minute, backroom deal produced a non-binding accord, participants and observers of the negotiations are beginning to question whether it is the best forum for these sorts of conversations. Central to the progress, or lack thereof, on international climate change policy is the United States' intransigence. As one of the world most proliferate carbon spewers, it's essential for the United States to commit to dramatic reductions in its carbon emissions.

But if American negotiators have always been reluctant to make those promises, even if they did this year, their promises would ring empty. The results of the 2010 midterms mean there's little chance Congress would ratify a treaty. Republicans just eliminated a special House committee on global warming. They certainly aren't interested in making the sorts of concessions that international negotiators want and need to convince their own governments to move forward.

Signing off

It's unclear, at this point, if the UNFCCC framework will ever produce a worthwhile results. Inter Press Service's Kanya D'Almeida reports that "the meeting in Cancún is foreshadowed by a deep pessimism." D'Almedia offers, for instance, this take from Nigel Purvis, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States:

"Global climate talks have begun to resemble a bad soap opera," Purvis wrote in an essay entitled 'Cancún and the End of Climate Diplomacy. "They seem to never end, yet seldom change and at times bear little resemblance to reality. This is why climate diplomacy as we know it has lost its relevance."

The last landmark climate treaty--the Kyoto Protocol, which the United States never signed onto--will expire in 2012. The Copenhagen Accord, the agreement that came out of last year's negotiations, does not bind countries to their commitments, as Kyoto did.

The next major step in tackling climate change could be for countries across the world to re-up their commitments to reducing carbon emissions through a Kyoto-like (i.e. legally enforceable) pact. The alternative is to base global action on an agreement along the lines of the one produced at Copenhagen, with less stringent standards for accountability.

Kyoto v. Copenhagen

Tina Gephardt writes at The Nation that "Serious tensions threaten to derail the UNFCCC process entirely. At the heart of these skirmishes are two camps: those nations who want to extend the Kyoto Protocol and those nations, including the United States, who want to ram through the Copenhagen Accord."

The Accord's mechanism for oversight and enforcement relies on countries monitoring each others' progress on carbon reductions, but as Mother Jones' Sheppard reports, an early point of disagreement in this year's session centers on how important it is to agree how that monitoring will happen.

Stubborn Americans

What does seem certain is that if, at the end of this session, international climate negotiations have become so messy and tangled the world abandons them, and starts over, much of the blame will lie with the United States. Tom Athanasiou lays out the case in Earth Island Journal:

It's the US, after all, that reduced the Kyoto Protocol to a non-starter, and the US that led the Copenhagen charge to abandon top-down emissions targets in favor of bottom-up "pledge and review." It's the US that, in the words of chief negotiator Todd Stern, is looking for a "new paradigm for climate diplomacy" that asserts a world in which the developed countries are no longer presumed to bear the overarching, if inconvenient, obligations of the rich and the responsible.

It's not that American leaders aren't aware of the problems the world could face (although some on the right continue to deny they exist). As Nancy Roberts points out at Care2, "Up to one billion people could be displaced by rising sea levels this century." To a certain extent, the United States is insulated from the impact of climate change. As this map, which ColorLines highlighted a few weeks ago, illustrates, America is not particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. But it'd be foolish for American leaders to ignore the security and economic implications wrought by the migration of one-sixth of the world's population.

Reaction

But Washington has shown time after time that it is willing to look past problems until they become unavoidable. The consequences of that attitude have been devastating in recent years. The BP oil spill is only the most recent example. This week the Obama administration announced it would not open up new coastline areas in the southeastern U.S. for offshore oil drilling--a decision that came only after it became clear just how much havoc a drilling disaster could cause (and would likely cause again).

With climate change, however, the tons of carbon already in the atmosphere can't be mopped up or "dispersed," or forgotten, within months. The consequences will linger on, and by the time they become clear, it will be too late to act, and international negotiators won't be talking about emission levels, but food, water, and refugee crises.

This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.

More...

I decided to take a break from blogging over the last few days. I hadn't really taken any time off since the elections were over, and between the Thanksgiving weekend and being generally irritated by many of the events of the last month, it just seemed like a good time to mellow out for a few days- and hopefully I didn't also, to steal a line from Woody Allen, ripen and rot. Plus, I was getting tired of writing about a bad economy, bankers ripping off everyone else and no one holding them accountable, and dumb insider DC political debates. But the life and death battle over issues that really do matter to regular Americans doesn't ever stop, and this is a huge couple of political weeks.

The next couple of news cycles will be dominated by the deficit commission report, the attempts by Bowles and Simpson to round up votes on the commission for it, and the Obama administration's reaction to it. The way Obama reacts to this, in particular, will be one of the most consequential and politically significant early signs over which path the administration wants to take going forward. If they decide to embrace this report, as many people are predicting, it means they have decided to choose the DC centrist path toward political rehabilitation: get the Washington Post, the Third Way, and DC establishment all excited, and hope all that excitement trickles down to real voters someday. Given how unpopular the specifics of this plan are, and given that it takes away the fervent defense of Social Security and Medicare (Democrats' strongest political selling point right now), that would be a terrible political decision, making Obama's re-election hopes very dark.

More...

I hear there's an election next week. How do I know? Every media outlet this side of the Vladivostok Daily Bugle (VladBugle.com) can't shut up about it. The Tea Party. Yammer yammer yammer. Feckless Democrats. Yammer yammer yammer. Odd behavior. Yammer. Odder ideas. Yammer yammer. Palin. Driscoll. Angle. Paladino. Yowza! As far as I can tell, there hasn't been a new thought on this affair for months. Obama's paying for the recession, for stubborn unemployment, for bailouts, for his brains, slim physique and anti-colonialist forebears. Bailouts were payoffs. The crisis was not a crisis, but a fantasy conjured up by Wall Street. Obama is a socialist dictator to the right and Clintonian triangulater to the left. And Obama's not even technically running.

In some ways it's been a relief to dip into the pink pages of the Financial Times, which has spent the week cogitating on the election in its op-ed pages. It's a relief for two reasons: First, the FT takes a welcome break from its endless discussion of the grim British austerity budget. Second, the view from abroad lacks the tendentiousness of American commentators, who have long ago dug into their partisan bunkers (The New York Times is bad, but The Wall Street Journal is so unrelievedly dogmatic that it makes you cry for the old days of kindly Robert Bartley). The high point was Wednesday, when Simon Schama and Martin Wolf weighed in. You could feel the cool breezes of reason stirring again. Historian Schama offered the overview, making the argument that historians (like, well, Schama) judge presidents differently from grubby politicians or voters, which is no great scholarly conclusion, though he did get off a few good lines.

More...