This past year, I traveled from Michigan to Texas to interview American Muslims about how terrorism finance laws interfere with their rights to practice their religion. American Muslim donors told me how the closure of some of the largest American Muslim charities in the country, widespread law enforcement interviews of Muslim donors about their donations, and surveillance of donations at mosques without suspicion, is creating a climate of fear that prevents them from making charitable donations.

Too few people focus on local politics. That allows corporate interests and corrupt machines to dominate. My wife and I have been involved in our local political scene since 2004. And each year we have walked our neighborhood in Brooklyn carrying petitions and working to get candidates elected. A few hundred votes can mean the difference between a corrupt judge and an honest one or someone who favors developers vs. someone who favors communities.

The prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman is perhaps the best known example of a criminal case that was infected with apparent judicial bias. But two recent news reports, originating from West Virginia and Georgia, shine an unusually bright spotlight on the problem of compromised judges.

Voters don't appreciate legislators kowtowing to special interests. I wonder how voters view the health insurance lobby? A new Public Policy poll shows Democratic legislators voting against the wishes of the majority because of presumed clout, thus strangling important legislation.

Between 65 and 80 percent of the American public backs a public option. You wouldn't know that from talking to beltway insiders, as they're convinced this is still 1994 and that arguments that worked to kill health care reform will work again. As always, beltway insiders are behind the times and out of touch with the struggles of Main Street. Beltway insiders call up their doctor, are seen that afternoon, and don't have to worry about the bill that comes three weeks later. Average Americans have to wait weeks for urgent medical appointments. We have to pay our copays up front to even see the doctor. And the prescriptions we're given to treat our ailments can bankrupt us.

The New York Times recently ran an article proclaiming the "return" of identity politics. This assumes that there's some other kind. Politics is about the accumulation of individual interests into collective decisions. Your interests, by definition, reflect your identity.

As the crisis in Iran deepens following Friday's disputed election and Western democracies debate its legitimacy, it seems important to remind ourselves that the burden is not on the people to prove state impropriety but on the state to demonstrate that it is expressing the will of the people.

In an article in this morning's Washington Post, two of the senior regulators most responsible for the current mess explain how, trust them, they'll do a better job this time round.

What does a shootout at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., the confessions of a Khmer Rouge jailer and the murder of a Kansas medical doctor have in common? The answer is "children," and how they suffer from being targeted and used by extremists to advance their own hateful agendas.

I read the quote from Helen Philpot in last Friday's Cheers and Jeers saying: "If you are born a white, male Christian in today's world and life didn't turn out the way you wanted, you probably have only yourself and the Rush Limbaugh Show to blame." Below the jump, a white male in today's world who's life hasn't turned out the way that he wants has a few thoughts.

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