Scott Lemieux

Another Bush administration change in E.P.A. regulations — also reflective of the legendary Republican commitment to “federalism” — has been rejected by the courts as inconsistent with the Clean Air Act. It’s almost as if that act was intended to require the executive to reduce pollution rather than to empower the executive to obstruct state […]

I’m not going to put a lot of stock in markets that see Biden as the most likely nominee — they have Kerry at 9%, after all — but this does seem to be the consensus. And perhaps I’ve been buttered up by the fairly dismal alternatives being offered, but like Steve I find Biden […]

I disagree with Steve Benen about the politics of John McCain not “ruling out” a pro-choice running mate — I think it’s a reasonably clever move by McCain. Obviously, there’s no chance of this actually happening, so the GOP’s anti-choice base won’t care about this once the pick is made. But it does help McCain […]

Peter Beinart gets plenty of criticism for being wrong about the Iraq War, but in fairness he’s been wrong about other things too. For example, when the New York courts declined to rule that the state’s exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage rights was unconstitutional, Beinart asserted that the courts “actually did the gay marriage […]

Anthony Kennedy, in his appalling opinion for the Court in Carhart II, asserted: While we find no reliable data to measure the phenomenon, it seems unexceptionable to conclude that some women shouldn’t worry their pretty little heads about manly medical treatment come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and […]

Bob Somerby makes what I would like to think is an obvious point about Michael Crowley‘s complaint about Obama returning to his home state for vacation. It’s not just that Hawaii is, in fact, a perfectly middlebrow vacation spot. It’s that the whole premise is a trap; once you lend credence to claims to that […]

Rule of law! “But not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime.” But I was informed by the highly serious priests of High Contrarianism that Mukasey‘s need to work with Congress would provide powerful disincentives against this sort of thing! I’m shocked that this didn’t work. In addition, Marcy Wheeler […]

Former TAP editor Sarah Blustain powerfully reminds us of what should be obvious: John McCain is a strong opponent of reproductive freedom. He’s certainly no moderate on the issue. Make sure to read the whole thing, but a taste: There is no “latitude” in McCain’s position on abortion. Interviews with dozens of people who have […]

Yesterday, Tom Maguire pointed to what he claims is an old defense of the “conventional wisdom” on the exclusion of Saint Casey from the 1992 Democratic convention (although, in fairness, his analysis is actually a little more intelligent than that.) But I see no reason to believe that Begala (who Maguire also links to) is […]

You would think that the latest defeat of Phil Kline would (unless you think the median national voter is more reactionary than the median voter in Kansas Republican primaries) give some pause to people who believe that appeasing radical Catholic anti-choicers should be a key criterion in choosing a running mate. Instead, alas, we get […]