Scott Lemieux

Seyward Darby has a good analysis of some stupid anti-same-sex-marriage arguments being made in the context of a Maine restore-inequality initiative. Essentially, the situation in Maine is similar to that in California in 2008 — similar arguments against SSM (in this case, in some cases by the same public relations firm) made by well-funded interests […]

Emily Bazelon has a useful article about the Los Angeles district attorney’s laudable decision to bring Roman Polanski to justice. I liked the deadpan first paragraph: As the latest legal fighting in the Roman Polanski cases bounces from Switzerland to the California appeals courts, it’s clear that Los Angeles District Attorney Stephen L. Cooley is […]

Jamison Foser discusses some egregious hackwork from Ceci Connolly. To summarize, Connolly first mentioned a laughably bogus PriceWaterhouse Coopers report that found that health-care reform would increase premiums $4,000 a year … if one relied on assumptions that were admittedly false and ignored cost savings in reform bills. In a follow-up article today, she assessed […]

Bob Somerby does an excellent job with a point I’ve been meaning to make about this NYT story, which speculates why public attitudes have turned against abortion. But the basis for the story (which, given the stability of public opinion about abortion since the early 1970s would be quite remarkable) is … just one poll. […]

As the Supreme Court term starts today, it’s worth considering Barry Friedman‘s article arguing that the Roberts Court has been less consequential than had been expected: As late as 2003, the Court handed down mega-decisions on controversial issues such as gay rights and affirmative action. However, major decisions like those are becoming few and far […]

I’m not sure I can quite endorse Isaac Chotiner‘s characterization of Robert Harris‘ op-ed as an example of Roman Polanski apologism getting worse. After all, Bernard-Henri Lévy has set a standard for badness in Polanski apologism that I don’t think can ever be surpassed — I would be particularly interested in further elaboration of the […]

You’ve probably heard that Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland. I think this is a very good thing, and find most of the outrage over it baffling. One thing to note here is that the documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired was an absolutely appalling whitewash. Bill Wyman has a great deal of detail about […]

The Indiana Court of Appeals struck down the Voter ID Act that was upheld by the United States Supreme Court last year. The opinion gets right to the heart of the issue: All qualified voters must be treated uniformly and impartially. We fail to see how the Voter I.D. Law’s exception of those residing in […]

It’s never a good sign when you use an argument that’s already been tried by Michael Goldfarb, and that’s the case with this from Megan McArdle: I’m reliably informed that the Democrats think they’re better off doing this alone than not doing it at all, and so it has to pass. If so, it will […]

Responding to Alexandra‘s excellent post, Matt Yglesias says: One frustrating aspect of the health care debate is that the President keeps getting accused of wanting to do things that he’s not actually doing but that would actually be good ideas. For example, as he explained last night the public option he’s designed stands no chance […]