The United States is involved in two long, expensive and intractable wars. The federal government is giving money to banks that committed colossal errors in judgment so they can compete against banks that did not . Capitalism, the economic system that produced history’s longest sustained increase in living standards, has been called dead . The current administration’s dismal...
A few nights ago, I happened upon this ad for Proposition 8, the California ballot initiative that would change the state constitution to ban same-sex marriages (which have been legal in California since May ). The presidential campaign has been fairly politically correct -- Reverend Wright is nowhere to be heard of, and cards such as welfare, crime, and jobs all have yet to be...
Yesterday, Barack Obama cautioned against counting chickens, invoking the New Hampshire primary, where Barack Obama led in the polls only to get a surprise trouncing. People still don’t agree on what went on in New Hampshire. Was it the Bradley Effect? Bad Polling? Did Obama’s Iowa victory give him a temporary bounce which didn’t hold up when it came time to vote? Or was it...
Who the hell is Joe the Plumber? (Not this guy , whose website is surely experiencing an unexpected surge in traffic.) His name is Joe Wurzelbacher and the New York Post caught a conversation between he and Senator Obama talking at an Ohio rally. Wurzelbacher, who planned on buying a business worth more than $250,000, asked Obama, “Your new tax plan is...
Eight years ago, world leaders promised that they would end world poverty by 2015 — the kind of poverty that kills 50,000 people a day . That means there’s only seven years left. Last month, White Band Action hosted the In My Name launch event –which brought out everyone from Bono to Kristen Davis — outside the United Nations in New York. White Band Action, whose...
My grandmother used to subscribe to two newspapers: The Jewish Week , a New York weekly covering Jewish news aimed at modern Orthodox and Conservative Jews, and The Jewish Press , a New York weekly aimed at ultra-Orthodox Jews, primarily in Brooklyn, where she lived. “Why do you read this?” I asked her, holding up a copy of The Jewish Press, which, during...
It seems like every news cycle has had its special phrase. Remember the “kitchen sink” ? Throwing one “under the bus” ? This week’s has been “game-changer.” As in, what McCain needs to have a shot at winning next month. Of course, the first thing that pundits say after a debate is that it wasn’t a game-changer. When history is written, debates are often...
With less than a month to go before Election Day, it would appear that voters have started to pay attention. Both McCain’s and Obama’s acceptance speeches were watched by record-breaking audiences. Thursday’s vice presidential debate broke records as well (following the non-record breaking presidential debate, whose ratings were lower partly because it was held on a Friday...
Is it just me, or was Thursday’s debate kind of boring? From a political standpoint, there were very few moments that were anything but…dull. We found out that Governor Palin and Senator Biden both love Israel (yawn), that they disagree about our country’s energy policy (okaaaay), and that they don’t see eye to eye on the origins of global warming (yawn). That’s not to...
I am a Californian. I have been left behind. The most exciting presidential election of my life is drawing to a dramatic close and I feel like Milton from Office Space when he didn’t get any cake . According to the polls , my state strongly supports Barack Obama. His lead is virtually insurmountable. Obama could come to California and promise to ban organic food and...
