ehm1212

Dana Goldstein on the end of the all-white suburb: During last year’s endless Democratic presidential primary, wonks and activists who cared about integration usually preferred John Edwards to Barack Obama. Edwards’ platform called for a million new housing vouchers to help poor families move to safer communities with better schools. And Edwards would have provided […]

Dana Goldstein asks if New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg can pay people to do the right thing: Groundwork is a tiny, storefront service agency that sits across the street from a hulking housing project in East New York, the Brooklyn neighborhood infamous for being one of the poorest and most dangerous in New York City. […]

Mark Schmitt on the changing demographics of the Democratic Party: Several years ago, I spoke on a panel where an audience member posed the rhetorical question, “Can any of you envision a robust progressive movement that doesn’t have organized labor at the center of it?” The appropriate answer — the one that wouldn’t cause the […]

Adam Serwer on the difficulty of undoing old detention policy: The cavernous room in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., was nearly empty, except for a few journalists holding yellow legal pads. A small parade of government lawyers marched in and rested their briefcases on their desks before approaching the trio of lawyers representing […]

Matt Yglesias on the fractious nature of Afghan politics: Today, Afghans head to the polls fearing attack from Taliban forces who’ve labeled the process a “program of the crusaders.” Most likely, Taliban efforts to derail the voting will fail, and incumbent President Hamid Karzai will stay in office. A smooth election, if it happens, should […]

Michael Dannenberg argues that the conversation about college costs shouldn’t end at student loans: For decades, the politics of higher education have followed familiar lines: Democrats champion higher Pell Grants for needy families, tuition tax credits for the middle class, and cheaper student loans paid for by cutting banks out of the system. Republicans advocate […]

Paul Starr on the sacrificial lamb that is the public option: Contrary to some overwrought reactions on the left, if a public insurance option fails to make it into this year’s health-care legislation, it does not spell the end of worthwhile reform. The president and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius have been […]

Dana Goldstein on the importance of reproductive-health coverage to the reform debate: In September 1993, as Hillary Clinton lobbied Congress to pass her health-reform bill, she plainly addressed the looming controversy over reproductive care. “It will include pregnancy-related services, and that will include abortion, as insurance policies currently do,” she told the Senate Finance Committee. […]

Paul Waldman on insurance companies and aggressive mimicry: When Barack Obama made the election promise of ambitious health-care reform in his first year in office, anyone who had paid attention to the issue would have predicted that the battle would be fierce. But one of the most curious developments of this debate has been that […]

Robert Reich on Obama‘s popularity: My friend Fred voted for Obama and trusts him to do the right thing. “He’s the brightest and most decent person who’s occupied the Oval Office in my lifetime,” Fred says. His trust for the man extends to Obama’s agenda. “I don’t have time to wade into the details of […]