picardow

Alexandra Gutierrez chronicles how Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell’s decision to veto a children and women’s health care bill that includes funding for abortion has spurred a backlash — and not just from liberals: Gov. Sean Parnell’s veto should have been popular, or at least uncontroversial, in a red state where the marquee initiative on the […]

TAP talks to filmmaker Jeffrey Blitz about his new documentary on the lottery, and how luck and hard work interact in America: I think the way my idea of luck changed wasn’t personal but cultural. I came to feel that social policy based on a diminished sense of luck in the world was actually very […]

Matthew Yglesias says it’s time for progressives to rethink their messaging on climate change and America’s use of fossil fuels: Unfortunately, I have absolutely no idea how to shut down the massive oil leak currently taking place in the Gulf of Mexico. Nor do I have any ideas about how to clean it up or […]

Monica Potts examines how a slew of female candidates are quietly winning races on their own terms: Before 1992, dubbed “the year of the woman” after four women were elected to the Senate in a single year, more Republican women held state and national office than Democratic women, says Jennifer Lawless, a professor of political […]

Ann Friedman argues that, contra Hanna Rosin, the problem isn’t men; it’s traditional gender stereotypes: It’s disappointing that, despite a history of sharp observations about gender and 5,000 words to work with, Hanna Rosin makes the same oversight as all of the other hand-wringing articles about the state of the American male. She thinks the […]

Terence Samuel argues that super-angry voter syndrome is beginning to look increasingly like a fiction: The anti-incumbent surge that is supposed to swamp President Obama and his party was not much in evidence last night. The poster-child for that school of political thought, Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, beat back a strong challenge from Lt. […]

Tim Fernholz examines the advantages of, and objections to, a stimulus program encouraging local infrastructure spending: Before Build America Bonds, the federal government supported infrastructure by making city and state bonds tax-free — if you loan money to a city, you don’t pay taxes on the interest it pays you in return. While this encouraged […]