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Laissez-Faire Economics? It's a Code Word for One-Sided Interventions

by Steven Conn

As he refines his economic message on the campaign trail this summer, Republican John McCain has made it clear that, previous positions notwithstanding, he has now embraced the Republican economic orthodoxy: eliminate regulation, cut taxes on corporations and the wealthy, and the free and unfettered market will take care of everything. This economic formula was fashioned most thoroughly by economist Milton Friedman in the mid-20th century, and brought to the federal government by Ronal

“Imagine What They’d Do If You Didn’t Stay on Their Ass!”

by David M. Barrett

JFK on wasteful Air Force spending.

What's Different About the Immigration Problem We Face Today--And What Can Be Done About It?

by Phil Kretsedemas

It is impossible to ignore the recent growth of the U.S. undocumented migrant population, which has almost tripled over the space of the past fifteen years.

Before We Send a Man to Mars We Should Remember the Wasted Efforts Spent Finding the North Pole

by Michael Robinson

How Obama Might Change the Politics of Race in Unexpected Ways

by James C. Cobb

I share Congressman John Lewis’s belief that Barack Obama’s selection as the Democratic standard bearer is a powerful reason to believe we are “in the process of laying down the burden of race.” As a veteran of the Civil Rights movement whose risks and sacrifices made Obama’s achievement possible, Rep. Lewis has every cause to feel vindicated and proud.. Lewis

Rumsfeld's Legacy: How Not to Run the Pentagon

by Dale R. Herspring

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld will go down in history as one of the most arrogant, inconsiderate, and – in the end, most incompetent secretaries of defense the US has had – at least since Robert MacNamara held the job.

Why This July 4th I'm Asking: Is Bill Kristol a Bolshevik?

by james Livingston

“The Declaration of Independence makes a difference.”  That’s Herman Melville talking.  He was trying to say that if you start with the assumption that “all men are created equal,” you will think about, and write differently for, your fellow men—and women.  He said it in the context of a meditation on Hawthorne’s “No, in thunder,” that is, his rejection of the inherited tradition, his declaration of independence from Anglo-E

Indiana Jones for President

by Timothy R. Furnish

Some weeks ago the Economist (June 7th-13th) had on its cover a picture of John McCain and Barack Obama, accompanying the story entitlted “America at its best.” But as July 4th approaches, most folks I know are, au contraire, dumbfounded that these two men are the best we can do for Presidential candidates in a nation of 300 million: in one corner, a naïf with fewer than 2 years in the U.S. Senate and dangerously liberal views; in the other, a cantankerous Abe Simpson clo

When Congress Failed to Stop the Vietnam War

by Joel K. Goldstein

Although polls show that two-thirds of the American public think that the war in Iraq is a mistake, Congress is having trouble stopping it. In fact, it continues to fund the war. Congress recently voted to appropriate $162 billion more for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In the bill, the Democrats included domestic benefits for veterans but yielded to the administration's opposition to any troop withdrawal. Thus, while Congress has power to declare war and controls the public purse, pra

Heller's Manufactured Gun Rights Can Be Traced to a Flawed Law Review Article

by Robert J. Spitzer

The momentous Supreme Court decision, D.C. v. Heller, has for the first time interpreted the Second Amendment's right to bear arms as pro

Mann Trouble

by Karen Abbott

The Mann Act, long relegated to the status of bawdy Frank Sinatra punch lines and literary asides—Lolita’s Humbert Humbert deplores the law as “lending itself to a dreadful pun”—was serious news recently for the first time in a century. In March, when Eliot Spitzer resigned as governor of New York, pundits speculated that he might face criminal charges based on the law, passed in 1910, which forbade the interstate transportation of any woman or girl for &ldqu

Why It's Time to Scrap the Rockefeller Drug Laws

by Julilly Kohler-Hausmann

Of course the Rockefeller Drug Laws have failed to reduce crime and drug abuse. It was never really their purpose. As a historian who studies the laws’ 1973 passage, I have watched with particular interest the most recent efforts to amend them. Debate has focused on whether severe sentences for drug possession and sale have “worked” for New York: Did they reduce crime, control addiction or discourage people from taking drugs? Ironically, we have known the answers to these qu

How Presidential Power Became Untouchable

by David Kyvig

Congressman Dennis Kucinich has presented 35 articles of impeachment against George W. Bush to the House of Representatives. Yet Congress is no

A Passion for Overcoming Injustice Has Seized Americans Once Again

by Walter Moss

Much passion and intolerance have been displayed so far this election year. Given that the two leading Democratic candidates were often identified as “a black man and a white woman,” it is perh

Democrats Must Beware the Curse of 1972

by Ira Chernus

Now that the Obama-Clinton battle is over, the Democrats face another fight that could split the party. In July, when the 186 members of the platform committee meet, they'll have to write a plank on the war in Iraq. The argument for a strong antiwar position -- "bring 'em all home now" -- is compelling. But it could well be politically fatal. The Democrats learned that in 1972. That's when antiwar forces took control of the party and nominated Sen. George McGovern. Richard N

What? Poor Kids in School Still Don't Get a Free Lunch?

by Susan Levine

World leaders are meeting in Rome to address the rising costs of food and fuel. Jacques Diouf, director general of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organi

It's 1976. No, it's 1968. No, it's ...

by David Liebers

Mark Twain said that history doesn't repeat itself, it rhymes. As campaign 2008 has gone on and on the pundits have increasingly turned to history for insights. The most familiar strategy has been to compare the present against some year in the past. One historian famously said that the chief duty of historians is to save us from analogies. Do these analogies work? You decide. Eric Rauchway: It’s 1912As Sen. Obama began to run away with the dele

Saving the Constitution from Lawyers

by Robert J. Spitzer

The profession of law is not only a necessary, but a virtuous enterprise. I'm no lawyer-basher: from a contract dispute, to murder, to divorce (n

Assassination Jokes: How Funny Are They?

by William Loren Katz

Republican Governor Mike Huckabee at the American Rifle Association heard a backstage noise and joked that it was Senator Obama diving to the floor to avoid gunfire. A week later came some less humorous imitators: Senator Clinton underscored her point that one never knows whether one's luck might take a fortuitous turn, by citing Robert Kennedy's assassination in June 1968, just two months after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. The next day, an editorial cartoon of a squinty

The Economy: The Problem We Face

by Jules R. Benjamin

Our economic system has four principal characteristics. I will not give a name to that system as it tends to inflame the discussion. The four characteristics are: 1) it produces a great deal of wealth; 2) it distributes that wealth very unevenly (This is due to the differential value given to different kinds of labor and to the legal protection given to personal assets.); 3) it periodically produces wealth destruction -- euphemistically referred to as the “business cycle;” 4) th