I am delighted to be joining 'Guardian U.S.''s team as a weekly columnist, and to have the chance to address American and global current events on its distinguished platform. 'Guardian U.S.' brings the 'Guardian''s hard-hitting investigative brand to a new focus on American news and opinion.

When people like Glenn Beck throw around the word Nazi without taking that kind of care, they are engaging in demagoguery. I am doing it with a concrete footnoted historical context.

The symbolic value of having an African-American president has certainly eased some racial tensions in America, but they're not gone.

From a constitutional point of view George W. Bush passing through the Patriot Act is no worse than Obama renewing it.

Spokespeople sell women the Iron Maiden and name her "Health": if public discourse were really concerned with women's health, it would turn angrily upon this aspect of the beauty myth.

The maturing of a woman who has continued to grow is a beautiful thing to behold. Or, if your ad revenue or your seven-figure salary or your privileged sexual status depend on it, it is an operable condition.

After we were hit on September 11 2001, we were in a state of national shock. Less than six weeks later, on October 26 2001, the USA Patriot Act was passed by a Congress that had little chance to debate it; many said that they scarcely had time to read it.