Blog: TAPPED

Tim Fernholz, whom you’ll remember from his Prospect days, reported at the National Journal today that the House Agriculture Committee has endorsed a cut to the food-stamp program, known as SNAP. SNAP is dealt with within the USDA, and the committee likely wants to deflect potential cuts to direct-payment programs made to farmers, Fernholz notes. […]

It’s a tense, dreary day in Oakland. Today’s the second anniversary of the Lovelle Mixon shooting, in which the 26-year-old parolee shot and killed four Oakland police officers before being gunned down in an East Oakland apartment building. It’s also the start of the highly publicized murder trial of journalist Chauncey Bailey, who was gunned […]

You may have seen a week and a half ago when Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank chided former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty for beginning to sound like he comes from the South as he campaigns for president, dropping his g’s and pronouncing “time” as “tahm,” among other things. You might expect him to respond by […]

California’s Republican lawmakers met in Sacramento over the weekend to figure out one thing: How to stop Gov. Jerry Brown’s recent proposal to close the state’s $27 billion budget shortfall. An important part of Brown’s plan rests on putting a handful of tax extensions on the June ballot. Republicans, of course, aren’t happy. The state’s […]

Yes, Barack Obama won a Nobel Peace prize, and yes, he has fired more cruise missiles than all other Peace prize winners combined. But given the actual content of Obama’s acceptance speech, it shouldn’t come as a surprise. For example: I believe that force can be justified on humanitarian grounds, as it was in the […]

Slate listed the winners of a contest today to find new ways to tackle childhood obesity. The winning idea was holding companies accountable for the way they market food to kids. About a year ago, I went to a media literacy conference with educators and advocates who spent their time trying to find the best […]

First it was blood money. After CIA operative Raymond A. Davis shot and killed two Pakistani men who allegedly tried to rob Davis while he was stationed in Lahore on a covert mission, our allegedly overspent nation that can’t afford heating-oil subsidies for poor people somehow scrounged up $2.3 million to pay off the families […]

(Lockheed Martin) When last month the House voted to cut $450 million in funding for the extra engine lawmakers had demanded for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (yes, they were building two different engines), you might have responded, “Well, at least that’s something.” But the truth is, that $450 million isn’t just a drop in […]

Warren Christopher wasn’t a perfect secretary of state, but as an advocate of caution and restraint in foreign policy, his passing this weekend — on the eve of our new adventure in Libya — was more than a little ironic. Here’s a portion from The New York Times obituary: Mr. Christopher, who as a diplomat […]

Andrew Sullivan on President Obama‘s speech this afternoon: To launch a war on these grounds is to set a precedent that would require a kind of global power and reach that not even the most righteous neocons have pushed for. […] The proper response to this presidential power-grab is a Congressional vote – as soon […]