ehm1212

Paul Waldman on the effect of off-year elections: Few things bring out the inanity of the punditry quite like an off-year election, and we were served a steaming portion of it after last week’s results. If Democrats know what’s good for them, they’ll ignore all the advisement from the pundits about where they need to […]

Kerry Howley profiles Kathleen Parker: Save the Males , Kathleen Parker’s 2008 polemic on sexual permissiveness and libertinism, contains the following euphemisms for vagina: “inner sanctum,” “familiars,” “you know what,” “very private parlor,” “sacred vessel,” “vestal vestibule,” and “hirsute abyss of God’s little oven.” We will be, laments Parker in her obligatory chapter on Eve […]

Gershom Gorenberg on violence in the West Bank: The glossy flier was posted on a bulletin border in a small, illegal outpost of Israeli settlers near Nablus in the West Bank when I visited last week. The black print appeared over a soft green picture of olive trees. The West Bank is famed for its […]

Adam Serwer on the continuing battle over voter fraud: Two days before New Jersey’s gubernatorial election, Wall Street Journal columnist and voter-fraud hype-man John Fund warned the election might be stolen away from Republican Chris Christie through voter fraud. “Local politicos,” he wrote, “tell me Philly operatives associated in the past with Acorn may now […]

Mark Schmitt on how his daughter could be the next Hideki Matsui: When it’s her long-awaited turn to play an inning behind the plate, I rush over to my daughter and help her strap on her leg guards, chest protector, and mask and then watch as she does her best imitation of Jorge Posada, crouched […]

Tim Fernholz on what the election results mean for Democrats: Not two days ago, a veteran Democratic operative told me that he expected Tuesday’s election results to be a death knell for Republican moderates. But after the votes were counted, the message is that extremists are out and economic concerns are in, as voters chose […]

Matthew Yglesias reviews It Takes a Pillage, Fool’s Gold, and Managed by the Markets: From the beginning of the great financial panic of 2007-2008, efforts at understanding the crisis have been hampered by the likely bias of the people in the best position to know. Anyone sufficiently “inside” the financial world to understand what was […]

Tim Fernholz on financial regulation: Sitting in his office, Rep. Brad Sherman does not look like an angry man. Leaning back and rubbing his stomach, the Californian calmly explains his concerns about the Treasury Department’s plan to regulate the financial industry, currently moving through Congress. Put him at a hearing, though, and he’ll subject witnesses […]

Jake Blumgart on tax initiatives in Maine and Washington state: In 2005, the people of Colorado made a counterintuitive move: They approved a referendum that basically guaranteed higher state taxes. With the support of 52 percent of the population, Coloradans suspended the Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR), a budget-slashing 1992 law that dramatically lowered taxes […]

Terence Samuel on the fight for the public option: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid grew up 50 miles outside the gaming capital of the world and sparred as an amateur boxer during his teen years. Perhaps this upbringing explains the Nevada politician’s urge to take up the risky fight for a public option in the […]