Ezra Klein

I have approximately a million e-mails sitting in my inbox, so to all of you who sent me something and haven’t gotten a reply, rest assured I’m trudging through the backlog. Finals/moving/life had the impudence to intrude till now.

I want Jeff Session to elaborate on this: “I think it is shocking that Democrats would treat [Soros] as a mainstream force of Democratic politics,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). “He has an agenda that transcends American interests.” Is Sessions picking back up on Hastert’s implication that Soros is a drug dealer? Is he calling […]

Some days, you look at our government run by plutocrats, our media populated by faux-centrist hacks, and our agencies led by college-era cronies of campaign contributors and liberalism really does look dead. And then, some days you hear the President’s animatronic press secretary justifying union-busting on grounds of affirmative action and you realize, no, it’s […]

To extend on this bit of Germany vs. India idiocy; rapid economic growth is quite a bit easier in very poor countries than in highly developed nations. Think of it in terms of human growth: a baby grows faster than you do, as does a tot, a child, and a teen. But they don’t keep […]

This is pretty funny. From Operation Offset, the Republican attempt to solve Katrina by cutting government waste: The recently passed FY06 Highway Bill, also known as TEA-LU, contained more than 6,000 earmarks, worth nearly $25 billion. Some of the most egregious examples include $200 million for the “bridge to nowhere,” a bridge in Alaska that […]

Matt notes that an absurdly large proportion of the Republican Conference’s waste-cutting ideas involve slicing big chunks out of Medicaid because, apparently, health care for the needy is waste. Yeah, yeah, par for the course. Unfortunately, the Republican majority clearly hasn’t checked with Health and Human Services to figure out how they’re providing the displaced […]

Over at HuffPo, Josh writes: With Rita barreling towards Galveston and the likely potential for Stan, Tammy, Vince and Wilma to materialize out of the Atlantic, the National Hurricane Center is preparing to resort to Greek letters in case of a fifth storm. It would be the first Hurricane Alpha, and at this pace, Alpha […]

As of this morning, I’ve moved to DC — goodbye to constant sunshine and crisp, dry air. Weather woes aside, all seems well, though I had forgotten about the downright creepy number of sandwich shops around here — has nobody heard of Mexican food? Chinese takeout? Anyway, now to find a place…If the distributed intelligence […]

There are times when nothing I could write would do a passage justice. This is one of them: The White House is aware of the growing political problem and has moved on several fronts to pacify Republicans — with decidedly uneven results. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, in a speech yesterday, said the White House […]

Not to reopen the old NARAL debate or anything, but after endorsing Lincoln Chafee to prove they’d stand by Republicans who support choice, watching him gladly shout “aye!” for John Roberts must be a real kick in the pants. I’ve said it before, but the basic reason not to endorse Republicans is that, right now, […]