Happy New Year, HuffPosters! As we're sweeping up the confetti, let's raise a final glass to 2010. Amidst the disasters, the acrimony and the "recovery, what recovery?" economy, there was still much to celebrate. It was another exciting year at HuffPost as we continued to grow and evolve. There were new sections (hello Travel, Religion, Health, Education, Divorce, Food, College, Arts), and new ways to experience HuffPost on the go (hello, iPad app). And there's more to come next year: more sections, more original video and more HuffPost reporters covering everything from politics to business to popular culture -- with an emphasis on storytelling and putting flesh and blood on the data. Personally, I watched my youngest daughter join her sister in college and crisscrossed the country on a book tour (with many detours to visit the daughters in college!). On the road, I marveled at the resilience and ingenuity I encountered as people throughout America take it upon themselves to reconnect to those in need and rebuild their communities. Here's to a wonderful 2011, full of love, compassion, creativity and surprises!

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There can be little doubt that, here in America, 2010 will be remembered as a tough year coming on the heels of a tough decade. Be it unprecedented rancor, record-setting obstructionism, the waxing crescent moon of our economy, or the continuously embarrassing fecklessness of much of the media, this year gave us a great deal to cringe about. Sure, we benefited as a nation from many of the hard-fought legislative achievements of the most productive Congress in fifty years, but each of those gains -- substantial though they may be -- carries the heavy asterisk of what could have been. This is the year that brought us the nightmarish stultification of the conservative movement and the nearly parodic collapse of the exhausted liberal will; it introduced us to Christine O'Donnell, Eric Massa, Tony Hayward, Sharron Angle, Terry Jones, bedbugs, death panels, Miami LeBron, and Four Loko. As demoralizing as so much of it was, however -- I'm looking at you, Four Loko -- my biggest regret of 2010 is reserved for an event that never happened.

2010 ought to have commemorated the hundredth anniversary of an American political movement which sought to make our country a kinder and better land, a movement which was conceived on August 31st, 1910 in the southwest corner of Osawatomie, Kansas, and which died, stillborn, during the presidential election of 1912. That August evening was supposed to have marked the culmination of a two-day festival memorializing America's most famous radical, John Brown, with the dedication of a park in his name; in the course of an hour-and-a-half-long address, however, the illustrious keynote speaker hardly even mentioned the notorious honoree. Two years removed from the presidency and two years shy of announcing that he would run again, Teddy Roosevelt spoke to 30,000 Kansans from atop a kitchen table that night, delivering what would come to be known as the "New Nationalism Speech." It was a speech about justice, about the principles we as a nation hold dear; it was a clarion call that -- for a moment -- reminded us of America's promise of a fair shake for all, and of how far we had already fallen from that foundational ideal.

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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.

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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.

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