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The Tea Party in Politics: Why the Event in Boston Harbor Keeps on Appealing to Conservatives

by Woden Teachout

With the Fourth of July, the Tea Parties are out in force again.  Begun in February by a Seattle blogger and introduced on national television b

What Cap and Trade Programs Are Really About

by Hugh Gorman

Is a “cap and trade” system for managing U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide likely to be as successful as the sulfur dioxide “cap and trade” program established by the Clean Ai

The Last Integrationist: A Note on Michael Jackson

by Jim Cullen

As we all know, Michael Jackson has and will be remembered in many ways: pop star, freak, business mogul, et. al. What I fear, amid all all the grief, cacophony, and distaste of these and coming days, is that we will lose sight of the truth that he was, whatever else he might have been, a great artist. Like his predecessor, Elvis Presley, Jackson was a distillation -- and extension -- of all that had come before him, in his particular case a tradition that runs from ring shouts to James Brown.

Why Soap Operas Should Be Taken Seriously By Gays and Straights

by Lisa Szefel

On April 1st, 2009 CBS announced the cancellation of the soap opera Guiding Light. The 72-year old daytime show was set to go down in television lore as the longest-running scripted program in broadcasting history. But within a week of the announcement the show turned into a viral sensation. Fan groups formed around the world and hundreds of compilation videos appeared on Youtube, capturing tens, then hundreds of thousands of hits. The sensation that sparked this phenomenon is the show&

The First Swine Flu Epidemic

by John M. Morra

The present swine flu pandemic has frightened and bewildered millions of people. The World Health Organization (WHO) has raised alerts to the highest levels, out of fear that this swine flu A (H1N1), to which no one has immunity, might cause untold suffering and death. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has presented the same argument and pointed out that no specific vaccine exists against A (H1N1) influenza. Confused local health authorities have rapidly closed and r

What We Can Learn from the Last Indian War About Ourselves

by Elliott West

            In 1877 the United States fought its last Indian war against its best friends in the far West,

How Has the Presidency Changed Most in the Last 30 Years?

by Peter M. Shane

If you asked Americans how the institutional Presidency has changed most in the last 30 years, the overwhelming majority would probably be clueless.  This has less to do with Americans&rsqu

Race and Non-Race on the High Court

by Simon Balto

In the infant stages of our first black presidency, these are interesting days indeed for trying to understand the meanings of race and American racism.  One of the more recent, prominent issues encompassed within this debate is the conservative uproar surrounding (and Democratic backpeddling from) Supreme Court-nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s comment that “a wise Latina woma

How's the Recession Affecting Consumers? An Interview with Historian Lawrence Glickman

by David Liebers

Lawrence Glickman is professor of history at the University of South Carolina. His books include A Living Wage: American Workers and the Making of Consumer Society (1997) and Consumer Society in American History: A Reader (1999). He recently co-edite

Since When Should Justices Be Representative?

by Daniel Mandel

President Barack Obama recently nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor of New York, a Latina jurist, to replace retiring Justice David Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court. Prior to her nomination, there were many advising Obama to select someone at least in part on the basis of gender, ethnicity or some other disadvantaged or minority criterion. Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women,

Right-Wing Sedition

by Carol V. Hamilton

In 1798, during the Quasi-war with France, Congress, with President John Adams’s support, passed the Sedition Act. Outraged by attacks on her husband, Abigail Adams supported the act, which was opposed by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, among others. “Let us not establish a tyranny,” wrote an alarmed Alexander Hamilton to an ally in Congress. Indeed, the Sedition Act, an obvious violation of the First Amendment, made a permanent blot on Adams’s presidency.  He

Should Catholic Justices Recuse Themselves on Certain Cases?

by Joyce Appleby

If Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court, joins the court she will turn its five Catholic members into a two-thirds majority. She will in fact be replacing one of the two Protestants who remained on the court. This dramatic change in the composition of the Supreme Court can be traced to the country's protracted struggle to achieve equality. It reflects our better selves, the ones who want to make up for decades of prejudice and discrimination. But because

What Obama Needs to Learn from the Failure of Bush's Social Security Plan and Clinton's Healthcare Reform

by Marc Goldwein

In recent weeks, the president has joined his allies within and outside of government in launching a campaign to overhaul and reform the American health care system. It appears as if all the stars are lining up to ensure the President’s success – health care reform is in high demand, the president is popular, there are large Democratic majorities in Congress, and outside groups from across the political spectrum seem interested in reform. Yet the same claims could have been made abou

How GM Betrayed Its Founding Genius

by Bernard A. Weisberger

Nota Bene: This article was published in November 2008. As GM staggers towards either bailout or bankruptcy,  I am reminded that the big financial meltdown of this Autumn began ju

The United States of Euphemism

by William J. Astore

Judging by the local newspaper that serves the rural area of Pennsylvania where I live, hunters no longer shoot and kill deer: they harvest them.  “Harvest” is the latest euphemism of choice for killing, and it’s applied not just to the culling of the deer herd but also to the killing of bears, bobcats, and other predators.In his speech on national securit

Science, Logic and Reason Are Not on the Side of the Nonreligious

by Owen C. Thomas

Many of the key ideas of the modern world, such as atheism, secularism, science, democracy, and naturalistic humanism, the default worldview of the mode

Harry Hopkins's Continuing Relevance

by Thomas Parrish

In January 1941, when President Roosevelt told a press conference that he was sending Harry Hopkins to London as his personal representative, those in Britain who knew something of this special emissary’s backgroun

Americans Love Government – As Long as They Can’t See It

by Brian Balogh

Despite all the talk about bipartisanship, there are not many issues that Democrats and Republicans agree upon these days.  But here’

Attacks on Sotomayor Ignore Court's History and Makeup

by Jeremy Young

Sonia Sotomayor is too liberal to serve on the Supreme Court -- so, at least, say many conservative critics of President Barack Obama's first high court nominee. It's odd for them to protest Sotomayor's left-wing views, though, when the current Supreme Court is far more conservative than are the majority of voters.Yet a Court that differs from public opinion is nothing new in U.S. history; in fact, disagreements between the Court and our elected officials are a natural and important part

What John Edwards Should Have Learned from Warren Harding

by Phillip Payne

Over the past few weeks pundits have played a game of “What If”:  What if John Edwards had won the Democratic nomination while hiding his secret affair with Reille Hunter?  Reports are now surfacing that Edwards’s staff prepared a “doomsday” strategy to prevent him from winning the nomination.  The concerns of the staffers evoke historical echoes of earlier political advisors who focused upon the character of their candidate.  Edwards’s s