Sam Rosenfeld

WHO’S DODGING THE ISSUE? Robert Samuelson is furious at the country’s think tanks for dodging the great question of the era: How the aging of the Boomers is going to require drastic and painful transformations in the American welfare state. He not only pulls the old trick of grouping “Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid” together […]

WANKERY’S POWER. The Times‘s campaign blog provides a nice illustration of just what kind of a political impact an op-ed like Michael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack‘s can have, regardless of whether or not headlines just keep coming of continuous carnage in Iraq and ever-worsening news regarding the very political dynamic the surge was intended to […]

MOVIE PLUG. I’ll second what Matt said about Charles Ferguson‘s new documentary about the first year of the American occupation of Iraq, No End in Sight. I think the very structure of the film — focusing on and portraying the initial missteps in the first phase of the occupation as avoidable but decisive turning points […]

SCOTUS PUTS THE FIX IN ON PRICES (JARED BERNSTEIN). Yesterday, the free-marketeers on the Supreme Court signed off on a plan to fix prices. It’s a strange thing when those who usually argue for an unfettered invisible hand reach for the handcuffs, so let’s spend a few minutes unpacking this one.

AFTER CHENEY. Don’t miss, over at LGM, Rob‘s thoughts on Dick Cheney‘s power and bureaucratic effectiveness as documented so amply this week in The Washington Post‘s justly-praised series. “He’s a bastard, but within the narrow confines of negotiating and navigating government bureaucracy, he’s a magnificent bastard,” writes Rob. “Perhaps inevitably, it occurs to me to […]

DEMS ARE MORE TRUSTED IN WORLD WAR AGAINST ISLAMOFASCISM. Greg Sargent is right, this is a truly egregious question in the latest FOX News poll but also a pretty telling result. –Sam Rosenfeld

SEATTLE AND LOUISVILLE. As expected, in another 5-4 decision the Supreme Court struck down two public school integration plans in Seattle and Louisville. We’re going to be running extensive coverage of this today and tomorrow, but for now, see here (PDF) for the full decision. Speaking of school integration, John Derbyshire offers some thoughtful comments […]

CARD-CHECKED. The Employee Free Choice Act died in the Senate yesterday by a vote of 51-48 — nine votes short of what would be needed for cloture. Today, New York Times economics writer David Leonhardt has a hand-wringy piece that both sides with card-check’s opponents in their argument that the process is illegitimate because it […]

NOT JUST ACTS OF COMMISSION. The chief prosecutor in the DoD’s Office of Military Commissions took to the New York Times op-ed page today to defend conditions in Guantanamo Bay and the integrity of the military commissions process for detainees there: “Guantánamo Bay is a clean, safe and humane place for enemy combatants,” Morris D. […]

FRIDAY SEERSUCKING. Via The Capitolist, this is certainly the jollyist context in which I’ve ever seen Ted Stevens, though he looks pretty pissed even here. –Sam Rosenfeld