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Giffords Shooting Is Evidence of Conservative Policy Failures, Too

Tue, 11 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

American Prospect - By Pema Levy - Jan. 11 (Opinion) - Since Jared Loughner's attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords, Republicans have united behind the idea that this was an isolated act by a crazy person. They argue that because Loughner was mentally unstable, their political rhetoric, often filled with guns and other violent intimations, is not to blame. Loughner probably was a mentally ill person with no coherent political agenda, but that's actually a good indictment of the conservative policy failures that allowed the shooting to take place.

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Paladino Meltdown Watch

Fri, 08 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

American Prospect - By Adam Serwer - Oct. 08 (News Analysis) - Is anyone else aware of a political ad in which a candidate references his opponent's talents in the sack? That's a sure-fire way to convince the New York electorate that sending around bestiality videos to his friends isn't indicative of Paladino's character as a person.

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The Impending Democratic Bloodbath.

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

American Prospect - By Adam Serwer - Sep. 01 (Comment) - According to Gallup, this Republican lead is greater than any previous midterm advantage in Gallup's 60-year history of tracking the generic ballot. Barring a miracle, Republicans are very likely to win the House in November, and there's a good chance they'll pick up the Senate, too. In addition to driving President Obama's agenda to the right, GOP gains virtually guarantee a scandal-ridden 112th Congress.

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Terrorists Versus Soccer

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

American Prospect - By Adam Serwer - Jun. 18 (Opinion) - International soccer interferes with the extremist vision of a fundamentalist society free of secular influences in a number of ways -- most notably by cultivating a secular, national identity separate from the religious one. It showcases peaceful interaction not only between rival, even hostile nations, but between Muslims and non-Muslims, undermining the narrative of an inevitable clash of civilizations between Islam and the West. This isn't to say that soccer is necessarily a liberalizing force -- Mussolini's Italy did win the last World Cup before World War II. But the world's love for soccer offers a particularly difficult challenge for the pan-Islamist extremist ideology of groups like al Shabaab and Hizbul Islam.

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Politicizing Miranda

Fri, 21 May 2010 00:00:00 -0700

American Prospect - By Adam Serwer - May. 21 (Opinion) - Modifying who has the right to a Miranda warning is a political solution to a national security problem that doesn't exist.

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Farewell, Facebook

Tue, 11 May 2010 00:00:00 -0700

American Prospect - By Laura Mcgann - May. 11 (Opinion) - Why one super-connected internet enthusiast decided it was time to pull the plug.

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The Library of Congress Is Now Following You on Twitter

Sat, 17 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

American Prospect - Apr. 17 (Interview) - TAP talks with the Library about why they're archiving tweets, if you can opt out, and who gets to be the Twitter Librarian.

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Authority in the Internet Age

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

American Prospect - By Nancy Scola - Apr. 08 (Opinion) - A DC Circuit Court Decision has called into question the FCC's ability to regulate the Internet.

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More Than Green

Sat, 27 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0700

American Prospect - By Justin Charity - Mar. 27 (Interview) - Cities are making efforts at the local level to become more sustainable. Are national policies in place to help them?

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The Academy of Debt

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0700

American Prospect - By Rebecca Delaney - Mar. 19 (Interview) - Everyone's focused on health care, but a critical student loan reform effort might pass through budget reconciliation soon, too.

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The Feminist Case for Flawed Reform

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0700

American Prospect - By Michelle Goldberg - Mar. 18 (Opinion) - The anti-abortion provisions of both the House and the Senate versions of health care are a serious setback for reproductive rights. We need to support it nonetheless.

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The New McCarthyism

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

American Prospect - By Adam Serwer - Mar. 04 (News Analysis) - How a smearing of Justice Department lawyers as "terrorist sympathizers" traveled from the conservative media to the United States Senate.

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Free Speech and Funding in Israel

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

American Prospect - By Gershom Gorenberg - Feb. 13 (Special Report) - Attacks against a major left Israeli philanthropic organization are symptomatic of the complex role foreign money plays in political debates.

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Eric Holder's War

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

American Prospect - By Dayo Olopade - Feb. 09 (Special Report) - For the attorney general, remaking the rule of law in a new century is as personal as it is professional.

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What Happened to Democracy?

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

American Prospect - By Robert B. Reich - Feb. 02 (Opinion) - Which programs should be cut, which entitlements pared back, and which taxes raised in order to reduce the long-term budget deficit? Hmmm. Let's convene a commission and have it decide. At least this is what several members of Congress and the Obama White House are proposing.

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As the World Turns

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 00:00:00 -0800

American Prospect - By Matthew Yglesias - Dec. 27 (News Analysis) - The basic story of the contemporary United States involves the slightly awkward combination of unmatched power and inevitable relative decline. Our economy can't grow as fast as India's or China's or Brazil's, and there's no equivalent to the EU integration process that could enhance our power and expand our reach. The only real uncertainty about relative decline concerns the extent to which those powers will be joined by other potential regional powerhouses like Nigeria, Iran, South Africa, and Indonesia, if they ever get their acts together in terms of sustained economic growth.

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Meet The New State Secrets Policy, Not So Different From The Old State Secrets Policy

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

American Prospect - By Adam Serwer - Sep. 23 (News Analysis) - The Obama administration's abuse of the state secrets privilege mirrors the Bush administration's, and that's despite months of promises to reform its use.

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Health Care's True Price | The American Prospect

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

American Prospect - By Paul Waldman - Jul. 09 (Opinion) - Health-care wonks worth their salt will tell you that the big issue in the current effort to reform our abysmal health-care system is cost control. They say if we don't do something to rein in the spiraling cost of health-care, it will eventually bankrupt us all. This is also a key argument made by advocates of what has become the ideological fulcrum of the health-care reform debate: the public option. Those who want to give Americans the choice of a government insurance plan have talked a lot about the public option's potential to save money over private coverage. And it would -- not only because the government could negotiate lower reimbursement rates but because it wouldn't have to spend money on the things that private insurers do, like underwriting (figuring out whom to avoid covering), marketing, multimillion-dollar executive salaries, and of course, profits. Competition from a less expensive public plan would also force private insurers to become more efficient.

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Delivering Affordable Health Care

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

American Prospect - By Miriam Perez - Jul. 08 (Special Report) - State licensing fights may be the first step for these midwives, but it's not their last. Now they're turning their attention to the federal health-care reform debate, and a look at the maternity-related health-care costs quickly explains why. Childbirth is among the top five causes for hospitalization, and the No. 1 cause for women. According to Childbirth Connection, Cesarean section is the most common operating-room procedure, and in 2009 the C-section rate hit an all-time high according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at 31.8 percent of all births. These rates account, in part, for the increasing cost of maternity care in the U.S. -- maternal and newborn charges totaled $86 billion in 2006, 45 percent of which was paid for by Medicaid. The federal government is already footing a huge portion of the U.S.' maternity-care bill, and these midwives think they can help reduce costs significantly, and not just for low-income women.

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An Uncertain Fate for Voting Rights

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

American Prospect - By Heather K. Gerken - Jun. 24 (Opinion) - Yesterday the Supreme Court wrote a cliffhanger of an opinion on the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), one of the most powerful weapons in the civil-rights arsenal. In the Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One (NAMUDNO) v. Holder opinion, the Court raised serious questions about Section 5's future, but it didn't pull the trigger. The question is how this story will end.

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Wealth-Care Reform

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

American Prospect - By Ezra Klein - Jun. 19 (Opinion) - he disease still haunts his life, however: In particular, it haunts his finances. Health insurance consumes 40 percent of the family's income. They have no retirement savings. Loan officers casually mention bankruptcy, a word that breaks Amy's heart. "This is not who we are," she said. "We have done everything we were supposed to do."

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WHAT TO MAKE OF PAYGO?

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

American Prospect - By Tim Fernholz - Jun. 11 (News Analysis) - What's the actual impact of making these congressional rules in to law? Since both rules have emergency waivers (designed for situations, like the current recession, where running a deficit is a good idea, but often abused by congress), Horney says that making the rules into law "doesn't make an enormous amount of difference. If you've got the votes to waive the congressional rules, you've probably got the votes to waive the statutory rule. [But] It heightens the visibility for [and] makes it a little bit harder for members of congress to vote for waiving the statute. The main question is whether that somehow builds more support for living by the pay-go rule. Get people to commit to living by it."

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Regulation and Credit Industry Blackmail

Tue, 19 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

American Prospect - By Tim Fernholz - May. 19 (Opinion) - Get ready. Every time the government threatens to regulate any kind of industry in the financial sector, whether the big banks, mortgage lenders, or, in today's case, credit card companies, you can expect a claim along these lines: The industry says that the proposals will force banks to issue fewer credit cards at greater cost to the current cardholders. You want to regulate us? Well, credit will 'dry up.' The article reports that the credit card industry will be unable to profit from hidden fees and near-usurious interest rates when the government bans them in new regulations currently under debate in the Senate (and other new regulations that will be implemented by the Fed in 2010). Now, this is factually true, but akin to a thief complaining that it's going to be so much harder to make money now that he can't just steal things anymore. White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee gets how credit card lenders are eliding responsibility of their actions: “The card industry is giving the argument that if you didn’t want to be carjacked, why weren’t you locking your doors or taking a different road?” Mr. Goolsbee said.

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Is the Threat of Homegrown Extremism Real?

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

American Prospect - By Michelle Goldberg - Apr. 22 (Opinion) - Last week's leaked DHS report has some asking if we need to train a closer eye on fringe political groups. But we shouldn't overlook the potential for abuse with government surveillance.

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Beat the Press

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 00:00:00 -0700

American Prospect - By Dean Baker - Apr. 21 (News Analysis) - The standard housing series show that house prices must fall another 15-20 percent in real terms to return to their trend levels.

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