‘Nobody wins’ on immigration reform  —  The Arizona Legislature's passage of a new hard-line anti-immigration law may force both Democrats and Republicans into a place they don't want to be: dealing with the contentious, no-win issue of immigration reform in the midst of an election year.

The Revolution Will Be Commercialized  —  Sarah Palin is already president of right-wing America—and it's a position with a very big salary.  —  On the morning of July 3, 2009, a national holiday, Sarah Palin placed a call to her communications director and told her that she wanted to hold …

Obama Rejects Bipartisan Bank Deal  —  Although Senate Banking Committee Chris Dodd and his sometime Republican ally Richard Shelby continued to make noises on the Sunday talk shows about a possible bipartisan deal, both President Obama and House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank …

Op-Ed Columnist: Berating the Rating Agencies  —  Let's hear it for the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.  Its work on the financial crisis is increasingly looking like the 21st-century version of the Pecora hearings, which helped usher in New Deal-era financial regulation.

Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?  —  Bear with me while I vent for a moment.  On financial reform, there are clear villains in the political process: Mitch McConnell, the US Chamber of Commerce, etc.. But at this point I'm accustomed to that sort of thing.

Not Even in South Park?  —  Two months before 9/11, Comedy Central aired an episode of “South Park” entitled “Super Best Friends,” in which the cartoon show's foul-mouthed urchins sought assistance from an unusual team of superheroes.  These particular superfriends were all religious figures …

The Cushy Life of the Rightwinger  —  If you're a connoisseur of people pointing out that Jonah Goldberg isn't a very intelligent man while simultaneously being too polite to come out and say so directly, I'd highly recommend this post from Conor Friedersdorf.

‘Gay dog’ refused entry to Adelaide restaurant  —  An Adelaide restaurant that refused a blind man entry because a waiter thought his guide dog was “gay” has been ordered to apologise and pay compensation.  —  Ian Jolly was told he could not take guide dog Nudge into the Thai Spice …

Hundreds protest immigration law in Arizona  —  Phoenix, Arizona (CNN) — Hundreds of people gathered outside Arizona's Capitol building on Sunday in a largely peaceful protest against the state's tough new immigration law.  —  Chanting “Yes we can,” waving American flags and holding signs reading …

National Security Adviser Jones: Jews Are Greedy Merchants  —  As the National Security Adviser, General James Jones is not known as a friend of the Jewish State.  It was Jones who put together the team of Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski to meet with the President and advise him to impose a solution on Israel.

THOUSANDS IN THE POURING RAIN TO SUPPORT ISRAEL AGAINST OBAMA'S ANTI-ISRAEL POLICIES  —  The rain was fitting as Obama's anti-Israel policies cast a dark cloud on the free world.  But that didn't stop thousands and thousands of Jews, Christians, Hindus and freedom loving peoples from coming out against Obama.

How do you measure ‘epistemic closure’?  —  “Epistemic closure,” Julian Sanchez writes, is the toxic result of “confirmation bias plus a sufficiently large array of multimedia conservative outlets to constitute a complete media counterculture, plus an overbroad ideological justification …

The Quiet Coup  —  The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States.  One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs …

Don't talk to aliens, warns Stephen Hawking  —  THE aliens are out there and Earth had better watch out, at least according to Stephen Hawking.  He has suggested that extraterrestrials are almost certain to exist — but that instead of seeking them out, humanity should be doing all it that can to avoid any contact.

Baucus: A bank tax is coming  —  It was a short hallway conversation but spoke volumes about the dilemma facing Democrats, hungry for new revenues after emptying the cupboard on health care reform.  —  “I don't think there's much doubt that there will be a bank tax,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus told POLITICO.

Signs of progress as Obama envoy wraps up mission  —  RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — President Barack Obama's Middle East envoy wrapped up his latest diplomatic mission Sunday without getting the Palestinians to agree to indirect peace talks with Israe...