Huma Abedin
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The last days of Weiner’s mayoral campaign devolve into farce, with anxious aides running around and the candidate’s interactions with voters getting more and more contentious. While watching the ship go down is entertaining, what makes the story so fascinating is the boldfaced dishonesty at its core. Weiner the man misses what Weiner the film understands about his predicament: that being made a fool by trusting in the wrong person is an awfully hard thing to forgive.
This coming January, Marvel Comics will launch the new monthly, Ms. Marvel. Photo:RNS / courtesy of Sara Pichelli, Marvel Comics
When Marvel Comics announced the debut of its latest superhero — a 16-year-old Pakistani-American Muslim from Jersey City, N.J. — it was correctly seen as a positive development. Created and written by two American Muslim women, Kamala Khan (aka Ms. Marvel) holds promise.
But while Khan is a comic book character, she should not become a caricature.
“Her brother is extremely conservative,” the editor, Sana Amanat, told The New York Times. “Her mom is paranoid that she’s going to touch a boy and get pregnant. Her father wants her to concentrate on her studies and become a doctor.”
American literature is replete with tales of assimilation, from “My Antonia” to “The Joy Luck Club.” The overprotective mother and the demanding father are staples of the genre. But with Khan, there is an additional twist: The “conservative” brother.
Michele Bachmann speaking in January. JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images
On Wednesday, 42 interfaith religious and advocacy organizations signed on to a letter condemning Rep. Michele Bachmann and others in Congress for their accusations that the Muslim Brotherhood had infiltrated the U.S. government.
The claims — one aimed at Sec. Hillary's Clinton aideHuma Abedin — have also been condemned by members on both sides of the aisle. One of the most impassioned defenses of Abedin came from Sen. John McCain (R - Ariz.), saying, "When anyone, not least a member of Congress, launches specious and degrading attacks against fellow Americans on the basis of nothing more than fear of who they are and ignorance of what they stand for, it defames the spirit of our nation, and we all grow poorer because of it.”
Scott Keys reports for ThinkProgress:
"One of the most conservative congressmen in the country stepped up to defend Huma Abedin, a top aide to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, and the rights of all Muslim-Americans yesterday against Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) spurious accusations that she is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, calling them 'the wrong thing to do.'”
During a town hall held by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) on Sunday, a constituent lauded Bachmann’s anti-Muslim witchhunt about a supposed Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the U.S. government and called on her congressman to support her efforts. Sensenbrenner instead used the opportunity not only to defend Abedin, but to advocate for the larger notion of religious pluralism in America and a separation between church and state."
Read more about Rep. Sensenbrenner's response here