Two years ago, Evan Snyder, a developmental and child neurologist, was working at the Harvard Medical School, transplanting neural stem cells into the damaged brains and spinal cords of mice and other animals and watching them reconstitute tissue or recover function. “I had just moved to better lab space,” Snyder recalled in June at the […]
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Purple People Watch
Colorado. Pragmatism triumphed over principle in Tuesday’s dual Colorado Senate primaries. As expected, state Attorney General Ken Salazar, a pro-war moderate, easily defeated more liberal educator Mike Miles to win the Democratic nomination. The race on the Republican side was harder-fought. After the surprise retirement of incumbent Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell made the race competitive, […]
The New Swingers
ELYRIA, Ohio — In theory, Dan Imbrogno shouldn’t be a voter George W. Bush has to worry about. Imbrogno, a lifelong Republican, Ohioan, and business executive, looks like central casting’s idea of the model Bush voter. Imbrogno is president and chief executive of Ohio Screw, a precision-parts manufacturer located in this working-class suburb of Cleveland. […]
Corrective Measures
A feeble economy could help make John Kerry president. But then it would suddenly be his economy and his problem. Despite high deficits and low interest rates, both of which provide economic stimulus, this economy is barely treading water. Last month, the best the economy could manage was a paltry 32,000 new jobs. And it’s […]
Last Resort
A few months ago I got on an elevator in the Dirksen Senate Office Building with retiring GOP Senator Peter Fitzgerald of Illinois, the man whose decision not to seek re-election set off what has been one of the weirdest election contests in recent memory. Lamenting the lack of diversity in his party, and what […]
They Did it Again
A few months ago, the Federal Reserve made it clear that, given that the recovery was more or less on track, it was going to start raising interest rates off their 46-year low. It did so at its most prior meeting in June, raising the federal funds rate — the interest rate banks charge each […]
Government as Insurer
Are we on the edge of another savings and loan debacle? That one, in the late 1980s, cost taxpayers an estimated 150 to 200 billion dollars. It happened because too many of the nation’s savings and loan banks, knowing that their depositors were insured, took big risks with their depositor’s money — investing in all […]
What’s the Rush?
As Republicans continue playing politics — such as persuading a Democratic congressman from Louisiana to register as a Republican shortly before the election filing deadline on Friday — Democrats are returning to Washington Tuesday to talk about national security issues. “It’s a historic opportunity to enact into law the recommendations of the 9-11 Commission,” Rep. […]
Pants on Fire
How does a candidate go about getting nearly a majority of the votes while advocating a tax program that will overwhelmingly benefit a tiny, super-wealthy elite? As the invaluable All The President’s Spin, a new book from the editors of Spinsanity.org, ably documents, you mislead people. You say your plan will benefit all taxpayers when, […]
The Fog Machine
After the worst jobs report in months came out last Friday, the President, in an almost Stepford-like fashion, asserted that his tax cuts are working and the economy is “strong and getting stronger.” In fact, fewer than 100 days before the presidential election, unemployment is stuck where it was when the recovery began two-and-a-half years […]


