Archive
Hardly Working
Many people know that some 14 million Americans, officially about 9 percent of the nation’s work force, are unemployed. Another 12 million are under-employed. That means they’d like full-time work but can’t get it, or maybe they’re working two or three jobs without benefits in a desperate struggle to make ends meet.
Cut the Pentagon’s Budget, Make the U.S. Safer
Pressured by the need to shrink the federal budget deficit, Congress is insisting that Pentagon spending can’t continue to grow at the galloping rate of the last decade. In response, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told Congress in October that he’s planning to cut $450 billion in planned military spending increases.
Mitt’s Personhood Problem
During the presidential election season — which, in case you haven’t noticed, has already begun — it’s up to reporters to link major state-based political events to positions of the presidential candidates. One such event of late was Mississippi voters’ defeat of a constitutional measure known as a “personhood” amendment.
Ethnic Jokes are a Fool’s Game
If patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels (and it is), then telling other people’s jokes is the last refuge of columnists (who are often mistaken for scoundrels, for some reason).
How the 1 Percent Can Camp Out with the 99 Percent
Perhaps you’re part of Wall Street’s richest 1 percent, yet, deep in the deepest part of your hedge-fund heart, you secretly support the “We Are the 99 Percent” people.
Occupy Ellis Island
The Long Road to Marriage Equality
Durban Diary: Repaying Climate Debt
A major flashpoint at the UN Climate summit in Durban is how nations in the global north should deliver the money that they’re supposed to give countries in the global south to support efforts to deal with climate change.
Durban Diary: What’s on the Table?
There are hundreds of issues and interests at stake at the 2011 UN climate summit, as well as representatives of the 192 countries who signed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992. But just two questions are on everyone’s mind.
Durban Diary: UN Summit’s Stormy Backdrop
On Sunday night, as I met with colleagues from Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America to prepare for the UN climate summit, the unseasonably blustery evening went from windy to rainy to huge downpour.
