picardow

In his rundown of the Republicans’ egregiously flawed alternative to the CLEAR Act, Jamelle notes the legislation involves a potentially massive subsidy to the nuclear power industry. Also today, one of the main Republican objections to the CLEAR Act is its elimination of the current $75 million cap on the liability oil producers face due […]

TAP talks to economist Matthew Kahn about the promise of California’s fledgling cap-and-trade system — and the campaign to undo it: How do you sell the idea of California being a guinea pig? Personally, I take pride in that. A society needs first movers. In a world of uncertainty, we need somebody to be the […]

Julian Sanchez delves into the Obama administration’s desire to “clarify” FBI power to get online records without warrants — and vastly expand it: At issue is the scope of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s power to obtain information from “electronic communications service providers” using national security letters (NLS), which compel private companies to allow government […]

Jamelle Bouie says Americans don’t know how to talk about race because they only do it when they absolutely have to: You can’t treat race as a box to be checked off. Not only is race a crucial part of American identity; it’s impossible to talk about policy in this country without also, somewhere, mentioning […]

TAP talks with Frank Vogel about Sharia-compliant finance, the financial crisis, and why banking is a chance to engage with the Islamic world: In establishing a study program for Islamic, Sharia-compliant finance, are you trying to facilitate an Islamic takeover of the United States? [Laughs] No. Islamic finance is one of the most opportune ways […]

Tom Lee says that while the new DMCA exemptions are an improvement, the basic paradox of telling consumers how they may use electronics remains unaddressed: Many of the exemptions are like this: They establish an island of protected use that slopes sharply down to the treacherous, crashing surf of consumer behavior — a zone where […]

Joel Anderson says we’re so far from achieving a post-racial society that even using the term is harmful: The roots of post-racialism reach back to the Democratic National Convention in 2004. Post-racialism, of course, is the belief that people of color — particularly those of African descent — have no need to keep agitating about […]

David Weigel shares some lessons from life in Washington’s ideological gray zone: When you’ve spent as much time as I have ping-ponging from one end of the ideological spectrum to the other, you come to the conclusion that you have two options. One: You can make a Prisoner Number 6 escape from one of these […]

Gershom Gorenberg observes that in the culture of Israeli settlements, stealing land has become invisible and unnoticed: The day’s task was to examine how to take someone’s land for settlement — via stealth, strong-arm tactics, or legal maneuvers. Only at the day’s end would I understand what my real goal had been: to remind myself […]

David L. Bosco on giving U.S. policy-makers a roadmap to a more restrained and sustainable foreign policy: Charles Kupchan’s theory is that groups of states can move away from conflict and mistrust in several stages — the first being a state’s usually unilateral concession to its adversary, almost always driven by a strategic need. That […]