ehm1212

Paul Waldman on what happens when the facts just don’t matter: History, the novelist Milan Kundera wrote, is but a thin thread stretched across the ocean of what is forgotten. This may explain why the further back you go into American history, the more consensus there tends to be about our presidents. If you wanted […]

Tim Fernholz asks if simple savings plans are the first step to combating poverty: The New York City Department of Consumer Affairs is housed on some rented floors near Wall Street, amid great banks that profited as millions of American consumers bought toxic loans and catalyzed a recession that drove further millions out of work. […]

Latoya Peterson on fresh food and convenience: “Fresh, farm-made jams and sauces,” trumpets a small, hand-lettered sign hanging over a veritable cornucopia of ruby-red salsas, assorted dips, and strawberry preserves. It is the beginning of farmers market season in Washington, D.C., where modest stalls bearing fruits, vegetables, and pastries seem to sprout overnight and take […]

Mark Schmitt reconsiders New York’s John V. Lindsay: In the familiar sad story of the decline of liberalism and the rise of the right in the 1970s, New York City deserves a particularly long chapter. The aphorism, “A conservative is a liberal who’s been mugged,” originated in New York, where robberies rose 900 percent from […]

Michelle Dean on Lost, pluralism, and white dudes: Lost began with a compelling premise, attracted a strong following, and subsequently annoyed the hell out of us with plodding story lines, dangling plot threads, and a lackadaisical attitude toward character development. Though ratings have fallen off as a result, ABC is nonetheless trying to keep expectations […]

Adam Serwer argues against using Miranda rights as a national-security fix: The Miranda issue is much larger than reciting the now-familiar right to remain silent. It’s really about a set of criminal-justice procedures following arrest that can potentially interfere with intelligence gathering. “When Holder says Miranda, what he really means is the collection of legal […]

Harold Meyerson writes that moribund Democrats showed surprising signs of life in yesterday’s elections: For a party presumably at death’s door, the Democrats had themselves a pretty fair election yesterday, while liberal and labor Democrats, had an altogether bang-up time. The Democrats held John Murtha’s southwest Pennsylvania house seat in exactly the kind of white […]

Monica Potts on the Blanche Lincoln challenge: In the final debate before today’s Democratic primary in Arkansas, Sen. Blanche Lincoln and her main challenger, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, played tug-of-war on a lot of issues, one of the most personal of which was money — who had more from outside groups and who spent more […]

Paul Waldman explains why Democrats might still be stronger than the troubled GOP come November: While most of those in the business of predicting elections are smart enough not to offer a specific number of seats they think the parties will gain or lose, there is fairly wide agreement on this proposition: Come November, the […]

Tim Fernholz writes that Kentucky Democrats think they have a chance to capture the Senate seat, despite a challenging political climate: The primary elections for Kentucky’s Senate seat have attracted attention and excitement this year, and not just around libertarian firebrand Rand Paul, who is cruising to what seems an inevitable victory in the GOP […]