Dana Goldstein

�MAKE HISTORY WITH HILLARY.� That�s the tagline for NOW�s new campaign to elect Hillary Clinton the next president of the United States. The august feminist organization joined Emily�s List today in making an unusually early formal endorsement of HRC. It demonstrates the limit, I think, of single-issue politics. In her statement, NOW PAC Chair Kim […]

ANOTHER YEAR OF THE WOMAN? Senators Ted Kennedy and Barbara Boxer and representatives Carolyn Maloney and Jerrold Nadler will reintroduce the Equal Rights Amendment in Congress today, and will announce hearings on women�s equality in the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. Conservative online media is already up in […]

PRO-CHOICE CATHOLICS, ANTI-AIPAC JEWS. Our own Ann Friedman has written an In These Times tribute to Frances Kissling, former president of Catholics for a Free Choice. Kissling, who was once a nun for six months, is a national progressive leader on abortion rights, access to contraception, LGBT rights, and stem cell research. She�s also a […]

A LIBERAL CASE FOR PORK? In September, TNR�s Brad Plumer argued �the liberal case for pork.� Call it vote buying if you will, but today, The Washington Post reports that House Democrats are tempting Iraq fence-sitters by adding $21 billion in domestic appropriations to the $124 billion war bill that sets an August 2008 deadline […]

EXBURBAN DREAMS DEFERRED. Over the past few years, stories of far-flung suburbs decimated by foreclosures have become newspaper staples. With resort-like names such as �Pocono Mountains� (in Pennsylvania, a 5-hour commute from New York City) and �Villages of Avalon� (in Riverside County, Calif., over an hour from downtown L.A.), it turns out that for many […]

ALINSKY 101. When Hillary Clinton graduated Wellesley in 1969, she turned down a job offer with community organizer and University of Chicago sociologist Saul Alinsky and headed to Yale Law School. In 1985, Barack Obama deferred law school to work with an Alinsky-inspired group on Chicago’s South Side, partnering with black churches to advocate for […]

HOLY MOLY. Some evidence this week that more progressive evangelicals are strengthening their position within the larger movement: The National Association of Evangelicals rejected a call from James Dodson, Gary Bauer, Paul Weyrich, and other prominent conservative Christians to maintain a singular focus on abortion and gay marriage and abandon environmentalism (which the movement calls […]

SHOULD WE BE IMITATING TERRORIST LABOR PRACTICES? Yesterday the Senate voted 51-46 to give 40,000 airport baggage screeners the right to unionize. The House supports a similar bill, but President Bush has threatened a veto, which there doesn�t appear to be enough votes in either the House or Senate to override. The New York Times […]

FEMINIST LABOR POLITICS. This weekend, The New York Times Magazine chimed in to a growing conversation about women�s work-family balance with a piece arguing that increasing government support for childcare and health care will encourage women to have more babies and start younger, thus staving off a �baby drought.� I�m unconvinced by the argument that […]

TAKE THAT, GROVER NORQUIST. Good news from a New York Times/CBS News poll this morning. Sixty percent of Americans — including 62 percent of independents — would be willing to pay more taxes to guarantee universal health coverage. But according to the poll, only 36 percent of Americans have confidence in Hillary Clinton�s ability to […]