Steve Ersinghaus

When Obama gets into office I hope he scraps this kind of crazy idea. The Feds can confiscate “information”? While interesting, I find the basis for the reversal opinion garbled behind weird and complex analogies.
The basic question holds: what constitutes reasonable search at the airport?

Dean Baker writes
There is something a bit obscene about billions of taxpayer dollars going to the country’s richest people, when average workers can’t afford health care for their kids.

I’ve added a “record correction” to my Doninger post.
Thanks, Andy.

Reportage from the Second Curcuit Court of Appeals is coming in on the Avery Doninger case, an item often in the post space here. This case is about relationships. These relationships should not be overcomplicated.
It calls for a rethinking by school administrators of their role in public discourse. It’s not about whether [...]

Lots of writing on the subject of William F. Buckley Jr. As you’d expect.
My first encounter came with Firing Line with Buckley and then Kinsley as moderator later.
Then we went to Crossfire and then to Asshead and Shitmouth. Talk show evolution.

Tonight, Bill Moyers is redoing the journal on the press’ role in the lead-up to the invasion. Ink quantity, pressure, passivity, information suppression. It’s very frustrating to hear the excuses. The doubters were placed on the back page. Those who had all he opportunity could have made the calls.
I feel now as I did then: [...]

Spazeboy comments on a proposal by Rep Tim O’Brien that would hope to keep graduates in the state by offering them “savings” incentive:
While I think this plan will do a lot to keep young college graduates in the state, I also think it will make it easier for more adults to go back to college. [...]

According to John Whitesides of Reuters, Obama “pulled even with Hillory Clinton in Iowa, with John Edwards close behind, in a tightening three-way race . . . ”
This imagery is just incredibly pathetic.

This article by Peter Wallsten from the Los Angeles Times and printed in The Hartford Courant is typical of what I would call “political or horse-race reporting.” It’s also reflective of news programming that concentrates of political strategy and campaign instruction, which may be a new idiom of the art.
Here are some features that [...]

Chris Mooney asks some good questions
As a prerequisite, the next president must grasp how science flows into a democracy at all levels. Whoever wins the election—man or woman, Democrat or Republican—will face profound science-based challenges and questions. Will space become militarized, or remain a neutral zone of unfettered international access? Will we successfully protect our [...]

Much of the talk at Congress over the past couple of days has been about numbers and, I must contend, vague expression about this or that strategy. Some argue that al-Maliki has to do honest business with Sunni Arabs and that Saudi Arabia must keep speaking to Iran and vice versa, another Sunni/Shiite issue (to [...]

Since we’re on the subject of reality, here’s a way of putting it together. From Juan Cole:
I personally find the controversy about Iraq in Washington to be bizarre. Are they really arguing about whether the situation is improving? I mean, you have the Night of the Living Dead over there. People lack potable water, [...]

My thoughts on borders come from my experience growing up in the US/Mexico region. The facts are that neither Ciudad Juarez nor El Paso could flourish without each other; they’re linked territory where the idea of “country” and “state” has always been blurred. This doesn’t mean that people aren’t aware of difference, boundary, and [...]

The title of this writing is the alternative title of the recent FISA update, which redraws the terms of surveillance to fit the needs of the curent “administration.” Definitions, rather than logic, form the bricks of rhetoric. Logic isn’t necessarily required to convince a reader or listener that an action is or is not sound, [...]

This post by Dean Baker goes to the notion of assessment.
Neither the Post nor NYT articles on the new $286 billion 5-year farm bill (approximately 1.8 percent of spending or $190 per person per year) passed by the House would provide readers any basis for answering this question. Both articles notes some of the largest [...]