Sasha Polakow-Suransky

In early October, as the Iraq debate heated up in Washington, U.S. Rep. and Senate hopeful John Thune (R-S.D.) began airing a campaign ad on western South Dakota television stations. The 30-second spot featured images of Saddam Hussein while an announcer assailed opponent Tim Johnson, the incumbent Democratic senator, for voting against missile-defense implementation. Opposing […]

“This hopefully will be a breath of fresh air,” exclaimed National Mining Association spokesman John Grasser, with no intended irony, after he learned that J. Steven Griles had been nominated as the Department of the Interior’s deputy secretary. Griles, who epitomizes the revolving door between government and industry, has alternated between getting rich working for […]

On Dec. 6, 2001, under rhetorical pressure from Speaker Dennis Hastert (“Support our president, who is fighting a courageous war on terrorism.”) and real pressure from the administration and corporate America, members of the House of Representatives passed a bill granting the president fast-track trade-promotion authority by a single vote: 215-to-214. The bill would not […]

The Netherlands, visitors have long observed, seems the very embodiment of tolerance. To stroll along Amsterdam’s central canals is to see cops bicycling through a haze of marijuana smoke while heroin addicts, drunk British tourists, pimps and prostitutes commingle in the alleys. Historically, the story goes, the Netherlands’ legendary tolerance made it one of the […]

The waiting room of the New Orleans juvenile court is hot and crowded. Its garishly painted walls stare down on angry parents, manacled teenagers and the occasional lawyer. In a corner, Victor Papai, the head of indigent defense at the juvenile court, shares a 4-foot-by-10-foot office with a staff of six part-time attorneys. Each handles […]