To Comfort The Afflicted
And Afflict The Comfortable
Lights, Cameras, Action
BY SUSAN ESTRICH The federal trial of Prop 8 – the California anti-gay marriage amendment whose constitutionality is currently being challenged – was about to be a grand experiment in televised trials until the Supreme Court abruptly pulled the plug Monday morning. The court said it needed more time to consider the arguments made by […]
Why Profiling Can’t Ensure Airline Security
BY FROMA HARROP Fifty years ago this month, a lawyer living in a posh New York suburb with his former model wife was being investigated for embezzlement. Julian Andrew Frank of Westport, CT, took out nearly $900,000 in life insurance and then, investigators believed, boarded a National Airlines plane with a bomb and blew it […]
The New Federalism
BY SUSAN ESTRICH In 1981, Ronald Reagan’s ideologists pronounced his attack on the welfare state an expression of the “new federalism.” It wasn’t that they were against helping the poor and the needy, but that the federal government was the wrong branch of government to do it. Even the president talked about it. People, myself […]
Partisan Hysteria Hypes [And Helps] Al-Qaeda
BY JOE CONASON The latest atrocity attempted by Al-Qaeda seems to be yet another example of history reprising a great tragedy as farce. What make the misadventure of the underpants bomber on Flight 253 seem darkly ridiculous, however, is not only his incompetence in setting himself on fire, but the hysteria and hypocrisy of the […]
An Unchained Dodd Rides Into Finance Reform
BY FROMA HARROP With polls showing that Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd would probably lose to most everyone running against him, the Democrat’s decision not to seek re-election is a relief to all but his Republican opponents. A Senate seat from true-blue Connecticut isn’t something Democrats should have to worry about. They’ve already got enough on […]
