Jamie Malanowski

At the CNN/Tea Party Express Republican debate the other night, Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul a hypothetical question about health insurance: What should happen if a healthy 30-year-old man who can afford insurance chooses not to buy it—and then becomes catastrophically ill and needs intensive care for six months? In the face of one of […]

President Obama launched his jobs offensive with a fine speech Thursday night. He seemed to have reasonable ideas, and the Republicans are going to have to be very careful about not seeming to look obstructionist if they are going to turn him down. There was one note that I wish the president had struck harder: […]

I don’t know if people still give Labor Day speeches about the working men and women who built this great land, but there were two articles written about labor earlier in the week that ought to boil the blood of every working stiff, whether blue collar, white collar, pink collar, no collar, or whatever. First, […]

Writing on redstate.com, Erik Erikson says “[Rick] Perry is rapidly becoming the front running and consolidating the lead.” Just speculating, I assume this has to do with his leaderly Texas macho swagger (“He’s a good lookin’ rascal,” said Bill Clinton, with what I detect is just a bit of mischief in his choice of words), […]

Two sentences have resulted in more damage to American democracy than any other. The sentences are simple, but have had profound effects. Both sentences are false on their face, and yet both have been decreed true by the Supreme Court, and are therefore the law of the land. One sentence is that a corporation is […]

Drew Westen, a professor of psychology at Emory University, hit the nail on the head in a piece that he wrote for the Times last week, in which he bemoaned President Obama‘s failure to seize the narrative of the political issues of our times. Imagine, says Westen, how things would have been different if Obama […]

In one of the most perceptive articles I have read in a long time, pollster par excellance Stan Greenberg wonders why Democrats are not finding better traction with the voters. “With high unemployment and the rich getting richer,” writes Greenberg in the New York Times, “you would think that voters of average means would flock […]

In his column in today’s Times, David Brooks points a finger at the various Republicans who let the opportunity for a grand bargain with President Obama on the deficit crumble away. It is worth quoting at length: “Republicans will come to regret this missed opportunity. So let us pause to identify the people who decided […]

. . .the party is over for Friday Night Lights, a terrific television series based on an excellent Peter Berg movie based ona very good Buzz Bissinger book. The story of a high school football coach and his wife, his players, their families, and the culture of small town football, Friday Night Lights did an […]

July 12, 2511–Archeologists working in the remnants of the great financial meltdown found remnants of a rare 21st century recording that survived the Great iTunes implosion of 2022. Performed by an obscure 21st century blues singer named Blind Muddy Obama, it is entitled “Band Aids and Peas,” and apparently contains references to the debt ceiling […]