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When West Virginia Mattered
This year West Virginia won't tell us much about the outcome of the Democratic primary. But it is a reminder of how this is not the first time we've seen a culturally alien candidate out to prove themselves to voters.
May 13, 2008 | By Harold Meyerson | web only
McCain's Judicial Hypocrisy
This week John McCain wholeheartedly embraced the idea of "judicial activism" -- a throughly mendacious concept that actually just means opposing judicial decisions that conservatives disagree with.
May 13, 2008 | By Paul Waldman | web only
Titans on the Mat
Some say politics in the United States can be explained by the Cronus theory -- parents stamping out their children's revolts at any cost. Has Barack Obama managed to overcome the resentments of older generations?
May 12, 2008 | By Harold Meyerson | web only
The GOP's '08 Election Anxiety
The race to watch on Tuesday is a special election in Mississippi. The reddest of congressional districts is poised to elect a Democrat, sending yet another signal that Republicans are in serious trouble come November.
May 9, 2008 | By Terence Samuel | web only
Israel at 60
To understand the co-existence of modern, cosmopolitan Israel with the Israel of permanent violent occupation, it's important to understand that Israel has locked itself into a box of fear. And that fear has become a danger in itself.
May 9, 2008 | By Daniel Levy | web only
Good Jobs for Americans Who Help Americans
Human services is the fastest-growing labor market. Here's how to restore middle-class earnings by making every human-service job a good job.
May 8, 2008 | By Robert Kuttner
The Meltdown Lowdown (No. 5)
Hillary Clinton's curious stance on the gas tax, adventures in JohnCare, and sub-prime analysts look to the past in order to misread the future.
May 8, 2008 | By Dean Baker | web only
Is Clinton the Last to Know It's Over?
Barack Obama coupled a solid, double-digit win in North Carolina with a narrow defeat in Indiana to stall Hillary Clinton's recent momentum. The question now is whether Clinton can see the increasingly obvious end of her campaign.
May 7, 2008 | By Thomas F. Schaller | web only
The FundamentaList (No. 33)
Wead and Copeland join to denounce Grassley, Copeland and Huckabee prevent a schism, and a new evangelical manifesto angers the religious right.
May 7, 2008 | By Sarah Posner | web only
Business as Usury
Before Congress goes after bank misdeeds on Wall Street, let's stop the petty theft on Main Street -- predatory mortgages and usurious loans. Had we protected the poor and the weak, the problems of our mighty banks might not be so great.
May 6, 2008 | By Thomas Geoghegan
Dispatches From Flyover Country
Thanks to the primary, states like Indiana are finally getting some attention from national reporters and Democrats. Now if only they could learn that not every Midwesterner is an awestruck hillbilly.
May 6, 2008 | By Lauren Bruce | web only
An End to Payday Loans?
Concern over the predatory practices of the payday lending industry has forged an unorthodox partnership in Virginia between religious, consumer-rights, and anti-poverty groups.
May 6, 2008 | By Kate Sheppard | web only
How Deep Is Your Love?
Republicans are up to their usual tricks -- questioning the patriotism of their opponents. The media, as usual, is playing along because it lauds political success, not virtue.
May 6, 2008 | By Paul Waldman | web only
Bubble and Bail
For most of the 20th century, America manufactured things. For the past 30 years, though, it has chiefly manufactured debt. Wall Street, with the aid of both political parties, gravely damaged the economy.
May 5, 2008 | By Kevin Phillips
The Undocumented American Dream
A new anthology of autobiographical stories written by undocumented immigrant college students serves as a reminder that we're neglecting some of the country's best and brightest.
May 5, 2008 | By Courtney E. Martin | web only
How Europe Avoided Our Mess
The credit crisis, which is sapping America's economic strength, was the result of an almost religious belief in deregulation whose excesses are now coming home to roost.
May 5, 2008 | By Robert Kuttner | web only
McCain's Delusional Tax Plan
The McCain Agenda: John McCain has adopted a tax plan that covers up massive giveaways to the rich with absurd assertions and faulty calculations.
May 2, 2008 | By Robert Gordon and James Kvaal | web only
Step Right Up Indiana
Like many late primary states, Indiana is feeling the flush of increased voter registration, national media attention and money from the DNC. Democrats are hopeful that this will auger well for down-ticket races in the fall.
May 2, 2008 | By Terence Samuel | web only
Subverting the Canon
In her new book, Wild Nights!, Joyce Carol Oates takes on the (largely male) Western literary canon in an attempt to sort out her ambivalence toward it and her place within it.
May 2, 2008 | By Britt Peterson | web only
The Myth of Green McCain
The McCain Agenda: Despite the hype, McCain's environmental record shows a candidate who acknowledges the reality of climate change, but will do little to roll it back. A President McCain would only push for reforms that do not inconvenience businesses or trouble the conservative elite.
May 1, 2008 | By Kate Sheppard | web only
The Mideast Editing Wars
The hawkish pro-Israel group CAMERA's campaign to warp Wikipedia articles was ineffectual. But it's a warning not to trust the online encyclopedia -- and to be wary of partisan "accuracy" advocates in the Israeli-Palestinian Narrative War.
May 1, 2008 | By Gershom Gorenberg | web only
The Meltdown Lowdown
(No. 4)
Clinton joins McCain in support of giveaways for oil companies, the housing market declines even faster, and McCain proposes gutting our health care system.
May 1, 2008 | By Dean Baker | web only
Heat-Seeking Missives
A Senate committee seeks to limit the use of secretive national security letters -- if you receive one, you're not allowed to tell anybody, but you are obliged to comply with its request for information.
May 1, 2008 | By Brian Beutler | web only
"Then No One Would Be a Democrat Anymore"
In 1970, Richard Nixon, inspired by a spontaneous construction workers' riot, settled on the political strategy that would win him the 1972 election by a landslide and dominate American politics to this day.
April 30, 2008 | By Rick Perlstein | web only
Obama Praises the Wrong Conservatives
Barack Obama says Republicans have some good ideas, but he is missing an opportunity to point out the difference between traditional conservative governance and the deliberately destructive agenda of today's conservative movement.
April 30, 2008 | By Greg Anrig | web only
The FundamentaList (No. 32)
Jeremiah Wright and John Hagee agree on theology, Hagee explains divine "curses," and the Christians-only National Day of Prayer comes to Washington.
April 30, 2008 | By Sarah Posner | web only
Why John McCain Wants You To Give Up Your Health Insurance
The McCain Agenda: McCain believes that Americans use too much health care, and he has created a plan that will make care less affordable so millions of Americans will use less.
April 30, 2008 | By Ezra Klein | web only
The Best Thing Not to Have Happened During the Bush Administration
With the stock market sinking and no end to our current economic woes in sight, aren't we glad we didn't privatize Social Security?
April 29, 2008 | By Robert B. Reich | web only
How Democrats Can Beat McCain
Democrats need not panic about running against John McCain. The war, the economy, and the Bush Legacy are aligned against him, and he's never had his centrist credentials attacked from the left.
April 29, 2008 | By Paul Waldman | web only
The Case of the Missing Education Policy
The McCain Agenda: Want to know what John McCain's plans are for fixing America's education system? Good luck. His last major statement was during his 2000 campaign.
April 29, 2008 | By Dana Goldstein | web only
The Militarist
Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain may protest that he hates war, but no American leader has promoted it more avidly. McCain is not only the most hawkish neocon on the horizon; he genuinely sees war as America's most ennobling enterprise.
April 28, 2008 | By Matthew Yglesias
Maverick or Manueverer?
John McCain has enjoyed a reputation for "authenticity" because of his commitment to "reform." But this reputation is evidence of Washington's sadly twisted standards, not McCain's virtue.
April 28, 2008 | By Mark Schmitt
Does John McCain Stand for Anything?
Ideas have never been the Arizona senator's strong suit, even when the conservative tide was surging. McCain's calling card has always been his biography, and his platform is built on received conservative truths.
April 28, 2008 | By Harold Meyerson | web only
The Pope's Free Pass
American politicians missed a chance to criticize the pope for the church's opposition to the use of condoms to stem the spread of AIDS.
April 25, 2008 | By Dana Goldstein | web only
Benedict v. Islam
Was the pontiff's visit to Ground Zero a gambit in the Catholic Church's contest with Islam for the soul of the developing world?
April 25, 2008 | By Adele M. Stan | web only
On the 2008 Primary and Black Anger
The Clintons do not seem to understand that the kind of revulsion they are generating in what was once the heart of their base is not your garden-variety political frustration.
April 25, 2008 | By Terence Samuel | web only
The Green Gap
As the number of green-collar jobs rises, pioneering activists are working to ensure that many of those jobs go to inner-city residents.
April 24, 2008 | By Kate Sheppard
The Meltdown Lowdown
(No. 3)
McCain has a very odd definition of economic progress, Bush is confused about the definition of recession, and a massive new foundation takes aim at Social Security and Medicare.
April 24, 2008 | By Dean Baker | web only
The Democrats' 60s Fixation
This year, the war and the economy may allow Democrats to transcend their internecine battles. Will Clinton and Obama rise to the challenge?
April 24, 2008 | By Harold Meyerson | web only
Congress Tries New Tactic on Subpoenas
Congress, facing a Justice Department unwilling to enforce its subpoenas, is exploring a novel legal option that could vastly expand the power of the legislative branch. Or not.
April 24, 2008 | By Brian Beutler | web only
TAP Talks with Lilly Ledbetter
The Supreme Court's decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear overturned decades of employment-law precedent. Congress is considering legislation this week that would reverse the decision and help end discriminatory pay practices.
April 23, 2008 | By Ann Friedman | web only
Knockin' You Out Like Rocky Balboa
Hillary Clinton has taken to calling herself the Rocky of the '08 primary. The analogy may be more apt than she realizes.
April 23, 2008 | By Ezra Klein | web only
The FundamentaList (No. 31)
This week in the religious right: Pentecostals cry "bigotry" while Grassley says "corruption," McCain makes headway with the religious right, and conservatives mock gay and lesbian teens.
April 23, 2008 | By Sarah Posner | web only
Pay No Attention to the Media Behind the Curtain
The press is convinced that badgering candidates about faux scandals is necessary because the issues, "will be raised" in the general election, but it ignores its own crucial roll in shaping the terms of debate.
April 22, 2008 | By Paul Waldman | web only
Why the Pennsylvania Primary Will Register in November
The prolonged battle for the Democratic nomination has swelled voter registration rolls in states that don't usually get a say in the primary process.
April 22, 2008 | By Holly Yeager | web only
Lullaby of Baghdad
Are we winning the Iraq war, or is what little progress we have achieved actually an illusion?
April 21, 2008 | By Paul Starr
Listening to Iraq
The news coverage of the Iraq War almost always ignores the daily lives of ordinary Iraqis. Seeking out those personal stories could help us understand the war's human cost.
April 21, 2008 | By Ann Friedman
Why Obama Will Win Pennsylvania
Barack Obama has shown himself capable under attack, and managed to rally support beyond Philadelphia. It may be enough to stop Hillary Clinton.
April 21, 2008 | By Terence Samuel | web only
More Than a Mother-Daughter Debate
Feminists inevitably lose when they take a reductive approach to generational rifts, such as the current fracas over whether or not to vote for Hillary Clinton. It's time for a more complex conversation.
April 21, 2008 | By Courtney E. Martin | web only
The Middle Age of Wong Kar-Wai
Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai made his name chronicling romantic alienation with an unmistakable visual style. But his new film, My Blueberry Nights, is atmospherically innocuous and contentedly middle-aged. What happened?
April 18, 2008 | By Noy Thrupkaew | web only
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