ehm1212

Paul Waldman on the special treatment of defense spending: When Rep. David Obey, chair of the House Appropriations Committee, recently proposed a surtax that would pay for the Afghanistan War, the collective response from most of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle was, “Are you nuts?” Nancy Pelosi quickly put the kibosh on […]

Courtney Martin says we need to work together on climate change: The headlines this week will no doubt be filled with talk of stalled negotiations in Copenhagen and our increasingly hot and bothered planet. Over the past five years, the climate-justice movement has marshaled an incredibly diverse group of people to push world leaders to […]

Terence Samuel says that the president must tackle the unemployment problem: In between this week’s Afghanistan speech at West Point and next week’s Copenhagen-Oslo double feature, the president fit in a jobs summit at the White House and a symbolic trip to Allentown, Pennsylvania, (where the restlessness was handed down) to talk about getting Americans […]

Anna Clark on alternative models of publishing: “When I get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.” So said Desiderius Erasmus, a Dutch priest born less than 20 years after the printing press was invented. This holiday season, publishers might like to see his ilk in […]

Mark Schmitt on campaign-finance regulation and corporations: There aren’t too many Supreme Court cases that can be called “truly momentous” even before they are decided. But when the Court asked to re-hear the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in a rare pre-term session this fall, it became clear that, even though the […]

Harold Meyerson explains how America’s commitment to states’ rights is undermining our economic recovery: By accident of its birth — a collection of separate colonies that slowly came together to form an independent union and revolted against the remote power of the British government — the United States has an enduring bias toward localism, an […]

Paul Waldman on how it’s best not to define yourself through your enemies: While most politicians portray themselves as actors on a grand stage, others try harder to convince us that they are no better than we are, of middling station and modest self-regard. Republicans, always conscious of their party’s white-shoe past and continued advocacy […]

Georgia Keohane profiles Massachusetts Senate candidate Alan Khazei: “I’ve always been a dark horse,” says Alan Khazei, a candidate for Ted Kennedy‘s Senate seat in Massachusetts. A November 23 Rasmussen Reports poll found Khazei trailing two well known political veterans. Yet in the past two months, Khazei has raised over two million dollars, been named […]

Mark Schmitt on why we can’t let angry minority hijack political dialogue: Of all the aspirations set out by the newly inaugurated Obama administration one year ago, the promise to reduce the level of acrimony in American political life is the one that has most plainly gone unfulfilled. And that’s not surprising — it’s always […]

Kriston Capps on Jeanne-Claude‘s role in the art world: In April 1994, married artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude fielded a question during an art-college lecture that forever altered their artistic practice. According to Wolfgang Volz, the couple’s friend and photographer, a man in the audience inquired after “the young poet Cyril, Christo’s son.” Jeanne-Claude, Cyril’s mother, […]