Tim Fernholz

The strife in Gaza is a story we’ve seen a few times before, and anyone who’s been paying attention has seen it’s dynamics play out on a less intense but similarly pernicious level for years now. Ta-Nehisi, grappling with the story, stumbles along the precipice of apathy: It just feels like nothing changes. I’ve never […]

Folks are getting a lot of yucks out of the news that the military is using Viagra to bribe tribal elders in Afghanistan. Obviously the effectivness of inducements for local allies is an important consideration in counterinsurgency, and both money and guns have nasty side effects when put in the hands of leaders who are, […]

Though I didn’t think Caroline Kennedy should be appointed to the New York senate seat before, her “campaign” should disqualify her even further. Whether the fault lies with Kennedy or her advisors, she has displayed a tin political ear in an environment that should make any pol worth their salt hyper-sensitive to concerns about ill-gained […]

Mike Crowley flags the latest opinions of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who is speaking out against plans to send 30,000 more American troops to Afghanistan, beginning with 4,000 scheduled to arrive early this spring. Karzai also strongly condemns the idea, borrowed from Iraq, that empowering local militias will be an effective counter-insurgency tactic. Though his […]

A special Holiday Think Tank Round-Up today. Green housing, state budgets, and Gitmo await: Green House. CAP‘s David Abromowitz examines the possibility of retrofitting 6 million HUD-subsidized rental units with energy efficient technology. An initiative focusing on energy conservation ccould be accomplished with a variety of policy changes that would make it easier to invest […]

Whenever someone tries to blame the housing price bubble on the Community Reinvestment Act, or suggests that the real reason the financial crisis got so out of hand were all those irresponsible homeowners taking loans they couldn’t pay back, or argues that what we really need is less government interference, they should be forced to […]

From the Presidential Inaugural Committee: Washington, D.C. – On January 20th, President-elect Barack Obama will take the oath of office using the same Bible upon which President Lincoln was sworn in at his first inauguration. The Bible is currently part of the collections of the Library of Congress. I know it’s just symbolic, but I […]

There’s an argument — maybe best made by John Judis — that despite the optimism I chronicled here, labor is a low priority for the incoming Obama administration. Though it is true that labor’s number one priority, the Employee Free Choice Act, is unlikely to be passed early in the new term, that’s somewhat out […]

So boss Mark Schmitt has a compelling theory that the GOP will rebuild itself at the state level through strong governors who can govern in a technically competent if conservative way, citing chief executives like Pataki, Engler, Thompson, Whitman, and Voinovich who seemed in the late nineties to be a raft of sanity in the […]

Ron Kirk will be announced as the United States Trade Representative. Kirk, a lawyer and lobbyist, has been the Mayor of Dallas, a U.S. Senate candidate, and an aide to Lloyd Bentsen. What I don’t see — and maybe he did this with Bentsen — is a ton of, hmm, trade experience. Certainly he worked […]