himwhynot

Monica Potts sats the next head of the Senate Agriculture Committee has a history of helping small-scale producers, overhauling food-safety regulation, and supporting sustainable practices. Stabenow, who became the first woman elected to represent Michigan in the Senate, has been a rank-and-file member of the committee since she joined the Senate in 2000. Agriculture makes […]

Paul Waldman asks whether the president has finally gone a step too far in compromising with Republicans. From the moment Obama emerged on the national scene, his ability to weave a compelling narrative around himself and his candidacy was one of his greatest strengths. As I argued back in 2006 (and elaborated on in 2007 […]

Courtney Martin says that when students from privileged backgrounds look abroad — rather than in their own dormitories — to be inspired to action, they perpetuate inequality. But why are the U.K. crowds almost 500 times as robust as those in the U.S.? Why does the American movement to fight tuition hikes and funding cuts […]

Paul Starr says seniors depend more on federal spending than any other group, but that did not deter a majority of them from voting for candidates who deplored “big government” and “socialized medicine.” The magnitude of the age shift and the degree to which it favored Republicans in 2010 were remarkable. In 2008, voters 65 […]

Craig Fehrman says Jack Anderson‘s obsessive coverage of Nixon marked the beginning of our modern scandal culture. In 1967, the jury for the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting unanimously recommended that the award go to the muckraking columnists Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson for their expose of the financial chicanery of Thomas Dodd, a powerful […]

Adam Serwer says a new case in Oregon reignites concerns over how the government catches terrorists. The most recent sting, involving an FBI-facilitated plot by a 19-year-old Somali American named Mohamed Osman Mohamud to bomb a Portland Christmas tree-lighting ceremony, has reignited concerns in the Muslim community about whether these FBI operations, which involve scary-sounding […]

Jamelle Bouie says progressives have good reason to worry about an Arizona campaign-finance case coming before the Supreme Court. The Roberts Court is poised to remake campaign-finance law — again. Progressives angry about the flood of corporate money into this year’s midterm elections already know they can thank the Court for its willingness to gut […]

Judith Levine explains why she’d rather be gazed at than groped. I haven’t flown since the initiation of the new Transportation Security Administration scanner/pat-down regime, but I will have to soon. Protection from the 1-in-9.3 million chance of dying in a terrorist attack requires that I allow a TSA agent to inspect my body. Lucky […]

Tim Fernholz says the price of a social safety net is low taxes for the wealthy. Today, 800,000 people lost their unemployment-insurance benefits. Almost 2 million more will lose theirs in January if the government does nothing. Unemployed people are losing their insurance because Congress can’t agree on a plan to extend benefits for people […]

Matthew Duss asks what the WikiLeaks cables tell us about the Middle East in the wake of the Bush Doctrine. For years, we’ve been told by conservative Middle East “experts” that, despite public pleading, Arab leaders were really not concerned about the destabilizing effects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Hudson Institute’s Lee Smith exemplified this […]