Ben Adler

THE DEBATE AND FRIVOLOUS ISSUES: Although I found the questions and answers on marriage equality last night to be very interesting (particularly Bill Richardson‘s shrewd answer that he’d get the lesbian couple from Brooklyn “everything I think is politically feasible” thus hinting that he has no problem with full marriage equality but avoiding taking the […]

CALI VERSUS NY ON ECO-FRIENDLINESS? NO CONTEST. On a separate angle of the demise of congestion pricing, suburban triumphalist blogger Brian Beutler is crowing about New York’s minor, and hopefully temporary, environmental setback. He sneers, “Mark my words, California, land of big cars and suburbs beyond the horizon, will someday have a more impressive environmental […]

BLOOMBERG AND THE FAILURE OF CONGESTION PRICING. I’ve long thought of New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg as his predecessor’s doppelganger. While Rudy Giuliani notoriously politicized policy-making by appointing cronies and polarized the city with his vindictive attitude, Bloomberg has appointed capable civil servants and pushed mostly technocratic, if sometimes ill-conceived, plans. But Bloomberg shares […]

WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS: A neat little story from The Washington Post today points to an alarming phenomenon: the lack of sidewalks throughout growing American communities. The Post focuses on Loudon County, Virginia, a D.C. exurb that is one of the fastest growing counties in the country. A survey of 840 miles of roads in […]

WHY IT’S HARD TO TAKE ROMNEY SERIOUSLY. OK, I know that because he’s up in the polls and fundraising, and has no personal skeletons (and less egregious policy skeletons) in his closet than Giuliani, I’m supposed to believe that Mitt Romney is the odds-on favorite for the Republican nomination. For reasons I can’t articulate, I’ve […]

THE TIMES MAKES MOORE’S POINT: The New York Times front page story “Market Forces Cited in Lymphoma Drugs’ Disuse” on Saturday was a chilling case in point as to how the profit motive perverts American health care (per Ezra, Michael Moore et al.) The piece explains how Bexxar and Zevalin, federally approved drugs for lymphoma, […]

IN FAVOR OF UNSIGNED EDITORIALS. In answer to Dana‘s question, there are plenty of good reasons for The New York Times to keep unsigned newspaper editorials. The first is to give the editorials the institutional authority of a respected newspaper. Liberals we should be glad that the Times‘ liberal editorial page isn’t planning on surrendering […]

FIREFIGHTERS BEEF WITH GIULIANI. Thanks to Ari Paul for reporting today on how the New York City firefighters union is going after Rudy Giuliani for his criminal neglect of their emergency equipment needs when he was mayor. But he doesn’t delve into another important reason that the firefighters have beef with Giuliani: New York City […]

NEW URBANISM. Matt brilliantly defends new urbanism from the tautological rightwing criticisms of pundits like Ross Douthat and Joel Kotkin (they argue that people move to suburbs because inner-cities are too expensive, we argue that we’re well aware of that, which is why we seek to change the government incentive structure to make urban living […]

IOWA OBSESSION: A piece in The Politico on the presidential campaign caught my eye today. It said, “Mitt and Ann Romney will join Bill and Hillary Clinton in a parade along Main Avenue,” guess where? Without reading the story, which gives it away in the lead, you might guess that the wealthy former governor of […]