The dismaying events of the last month in Washington prove that government itself is on trial in America. This cannot be dismissed by those of us who would like to believe that the dysfunction in the nation’s capital is caused only by crazy Tea Partiers or inept web designers. The inexcusable shutdown of the federal…
Several weeks ago, in a New York Times op-ed piece, Vladimir Putin wrote, “It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.” It did not take long for President Obama to assert the contrary, in his address to the UN General Assembly: “Some may disagree, but I believe America…
The invaluable Thomas Edsall reports in his New York Times blog on a paper by an MIT economist, co-written with a Harvard political scientist and a French economist, that claims America can’t adopt more egalitarian social policies because it’s our “cut-throat capitalism” that allows countries like Sweden to have their “cuddly capitalism.” The idea is…
An Idaho state senator compared insurance companies cooperating with Gov. Butch Otter’s proposed health insurance exchange to “Jews boarding trains to concentration camps.” Sheryl Nuxoll made the statement in a message sent to 120 email addresses and posted on Twitter, the Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Wash., reported. “Much like the Jews boarding the trains to concentration…
Around the 1992 election, like the political junkie-in-training I was, I walked around my grade-school wearing campaign buttons featuring the dynamic duo of Jewish female California Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, plus new First Lady Hillary Clinton. It was the Year of the Woman, a historic moment for women in politics — and a…
Was tonight’s debate a turning point in the campaign? Republicans believe it was, and that’s important. Republicans believe Romney won and they’re energized. The money that was fleeing Romney in the last several weeks is going to come back. Romney’s campaign was collapsing until tonight, and now it’s not collapsing anymore. He’s got a second…
I recently had a conversation with a cousin. As we discussed our families, he told me proudly about his 27-year old daughter, a nurse. She was working in two interesting but part-time jobs, one at a community health clinic and the other with senior adults. “Great,” I said. “But wait. How does she get health…
The decision by the Supreme Court to uphold the constitutionality of nearly all of President Barack Obama?s health reform plan is very good news for those tens of millions of Americans who due to poverty or preexisting illnesses had no access to health insurance. The court decision is purely a legal one ? pronouncing the…
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