Blog Profile / The Board
| URL : | http://theboard.blogs.nytimes.com/ | |
|---|---|---|
| Filed Under: | News | |
| Posts on Regator: | 248 | This blog is retired. |
| Archived Since: | April 26, 2008 | |
Blog Post Archive
The Census: Phantom Constituents
There are many ways to hijack political power. One of them is to draw state or city legislative districts around large prisons - and pretend that the inmates are legitimate constituents. Which, of course, they are not. Prison inmates are stripped of the right to vote in all but two states. They often live hundreds of [...]
Former VP Cheney: Sometimes You Just Have to Cringe
Most presidents and vice presidents refrain from attacking their successors after they leave office, especially on highly sensitive matters - like, say, the safety of the nation. At the very least, they wait until they write their inevitable, usually tedious, memoir. Not Dick Cheney. He didn't wait even a month. In an interview published today [...]
'The Nativist Lobby'
The Southern Poverty Law Center on Tuesday released "The Nativist Lobby," a report examining the connections among the three Washington-based organizations that have led the charge for restricting immigration to the United States. They are the Federation for American Immigration Reform, the Center for Immigration Studies and Numbers USA - a lobbying group, think tank, [...]
How About We Call It Taxpayer Stadium?
The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that Citigroup is exploring the possibility of backing out of its $400 million deal with the New York Mets to name the new Mets baseball stadium Citi Field. The deal is attracting a lot of attention these days, since Citibank accepted $45 billion in bailout money under the TARP [...]
The Nativists Are Restless, Continued
An editorial in The Times on Sunday examined the role of nativism in the immigration debate. Since then, we've had a lot of mail about the editorial, some asking what it was based on. The editorial was pegged to a new study by the American Cause, a right-wing think tank that analyzed the 2008 Congressional elections [...]
News from the G.O.P.: From Race-Baiting to a Racial Breakthrough
We had been wondering since Christmas how well Chip Saltsman would do in the race for the Republican National Committee chairmanship. Mr. Saltsman - a former Tennessee Republican chairman and the chairman of Mike Huckabee's presidential campaign - was beaten up pretty badly after he distributed a compact disk containing a racially explosive parody song entitled [...]
Defaming Michelle Obama
Fox news (and National Public Radio) talking head Juan Williams got more than he bargained for when he gratuitously lashed out at first lady Michelle Obama in a Fox broadcast earlier this week. In a rambling, and quite nearly frothing piece of commentary, Mr. Williams said the first lady was a potential liability to her husband [...]
Who's Judging the Ethics of Congress's Ethics Judges?
It's Ethics 101 that a judge should not take money from a party whose case he's judging. Who doesn't know that? The House ethics committee, it would appear. Members of the newly reconstituted committee will be judging the case against Representative Charles Rangel, Democrat of New York. Three of the five Democrats newly [...]
Obama's Outreach to Muslims
It likely will take time to see any real impact, but we are encouraged that President Obama has made it a priority to establish a more constructive tone with the world's Muslims, estimated at 1.2 billion, or about 22 percent of the population. Former President George W. Bush's expressions of respect for Muslim people were drowned [...]
Hilda! Hilda! Hilda!
Unemployment is rising as mass layoffs grip the nation. Millions of Americans who need full time jobs can only find part-time work. Waves of professionals and college graduates are working at jobs beneath the levels associated with their career and educational achievement, which is bad for them and bad for the workers who would [...]
About That 93-Year-Old Man Who Froze to Death
Outrage is growing in Michigan - and nationally - over the death of Marvin Schur, 93. Mr. Schur froze to death in his home after the municipal power company restricted his electricity because of an unpaid bill. The Associated Press reported that Mr. Schur died of hypothermia - and that the medical examiner called it [...]
The Disturbing Rise of Ultimate Fighting
Promoters of ultimate fighting, or mixed martial arts, are eyeing New York State as a new venue for their blood-soaked slugfests. Big companies from Las Vegas are promoting the new sport - which has much the same flavor as a particularly vicious street fight - in more than a dozen states and on television. [...]
Audio: Board Members Discuss the Inaugural Address
mm.DI = true; mm.LI = true; mm.AH = "Editorial Writers On Obama's Speech"; mm.AS = "20090120_EDBD_AUDIO"; mm.AD = "795"; mm.AU = "http://graphics8.nytimes.com/audiosrc/opinion/other/20opcast.mp3"; mm.IU = ""; writePlayer(); Board members...Show More Summary
Two Little (Huge) Things Obama Said
There was a lot to reflect on in President Obama's inaugural speech today, but there were two small points that are worth noting, two things that Mr. Obama mentioned that American politicians, especially presidents, never mention: Vietnam and atheism. To hear most American leaders tell it, the Constitutional freedom of religion allows you to be a [...]
The Obama Speech: Haves and Have Nots
President Obama fit a lot of ideas into his roughly 20-minute inaugural address, and one of the most welcome was his reference to the fact that the gap between rich and poor has grown too large: a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just [...]
(Almost) No Regrets
In its waning days, the administration is sufficiently eager to polish its foreign policy legacy that President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and, yes, even the elusive Dick Cheney, have been giving interviews to anybody who asks (or so it seems).
Bed Bug Alert
In recent years bed bugs have begun invading more and more homes and hotels across the country.
Traumatizing Children, to Keep Us "Safe"
Life in the United States in the age of state and local immigration enforcement run amok.
The Hoover Watch
Yesterday, the Board ran a blog item, about Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's penchant for Herbert Hoover-inspired solutions to the recession. He's not the only one. Last week, House minority leader John Boehner called for tax cuts to fight the [...]
The Ghost of Depression Past
The economy is tanking, and true to Republican form, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell can't stop channeling Herbert Hoover.