Rabbi David Saperstein, the chief spokesman for Reform Judaism in Washington, DC, says that President Obama and Attorney General Holder must speak out against the anti-Islamic furor afoot in the current. He made his comments in an exclusive interview with TPM after a meeting Holder held at the DOJ on the topic of anti-Muslim violence. See the video.

This time from Atrios … “whatever happens on election day, it’ll prove that america is, now and forever, a center right country”

Dallas pastor says Islam promotes pedophilia.

Why do all the most assiduous scholars of Islam happen to be televangelists from the Bible Belt?

I’m getting a bunch of interesting responses to the post below. So I’m going to post some of the more thought-provoking ones (to me at least) below the fold in this post. Read More

This morning I was reading this article by Christopher Hitchens about the never-ending mosque controversy. And it occurred to me how this controversy and the larger one of the role of Islam in American life has created this very odd alliance of convenience — or perhaps better to say, shared viewpoint — between religious fundamentalists and radical secularism.

Now, ‘radical secularism’ has the sound of a right-wing swear word. So let me explain what I mean. And the people who I’m thinking of are Hitchens, who I’m sure would embrace the label and Sam Harris. Whether or not we’re believers, most people who see themselves as having a secular outlook have what I think of as a benign, intentional inattention to the details of other people’s religious faith. We believe that religiosity is inherently personal, not bound by rationality, and in general, as long as people are good citizens and not trying to impose their views on others, we don’t look too closely or apply much scrutiny to the inner dimensions of their belief. This actually comes pretty close to what I think of as pluralism. Read More

Christina Bellantoni runs down the precarious electoral situations in which several incumbent Democratic senators find themselves. The situation is not as dire for Democrats as it is in the House, but you’d be surprised at how many Senate Democrats are polling below 50 percent.

Delaware GOP Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell has a long history of publicly promoting what might pass for Victorian sexual mores. But the Victorians probably weren’t this uptight.

Marty Peretz, scraping the bottom of the intellectual barrel:

But, frankly, Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims. And among those Muslims led by the Imam Rauf there is hardly one who has raised a fuss about the routine and random bloodshed that defines their brotherhood. So, yes, I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse.

Go read Timothy Noah on income inequality and check out the cool visuals he’s put together.

Best takeaway from today’s installment: “[I]ncome distribution in the United States is more unequal than in Guyana, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, and roughly on par with Uruguay, Argentina, and Ecuador.”

Seriously, go read.

Krugman’s take on Obama’s $50 billion infrastructure proposal: not enough and it won’t pass anyway.