Media

We are in the midst of National Protect Your Identity Week, and credit reporting giant Experian is kicking off the festivities with some ID theft prevention tips, such as signing up for Experian’s own credit monitoring service at a cost of $14.95 a month.

Three and a half years have passed since the afternoon when the stock markets went into a trillion-dollar free fall and just as suddenly reversed course, recovering 80 percent of that loss. It all happened in less than 45 minutes.

The crisis in Washington was always partly a story about money in politics, with big conservative donors pushing GOP lawmakers to an extreme stance with threats of primary challenges to those who didn't fall in line. 

Now, even after the bid to defund Obamacare turned into an abject rout for Republicans, these same donors are making good on their threats. 

Talk about your sore losers. After the Supreme Court struck down its attempt to make voter registration harder, Arizona is now attempting to implement a two-tier voting system that would require proof of citizenship in order to vote in state and local elections. Eligible voters who do not show proof of citizenship would only be allowed to vote in federal elections and not in state and local elections.

The push to require labels for genetically modified food, which flared up in Californiabefore drowning under a flood of industry cash last year, is now underway in Washington State.

President Obama showed real spine in standing up to Tea Party hostage takers. Now he needs to draw on the same grit in the budget negotiations set to begin immediately as part of the deal to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling. 

Remember the days when conservatives deployed an endless series of wedge issues to splinter the Democratic coalition -- peeling white moderate voters off from liberals? Well, now the shoe's on the other foot. 

The brewing civil war in the GOP between Tea Party extremists and more normal conservatives hit a boiling point over the past few weeks. But President Obama is poised to keep things boiling by pushing immigration reform to the top of Washington's agenda. 

Suppose we think income redistribution is a good idea -- given near-record corporate profits at a time when wages for most workers are stagnant. There are two main ways to achieve this goal: We could make business pick up the tab directly by raising the minimum wage, making it easier for workers to form unions, and mandating more employee benefits, such as paid vacation time. Or, we could leave business alone, but give poorly paid workers public benefits like tax refunds, free health insurance, food assistance, and so on. 

In 2005, Indiana passed a law requiring voters to present a government issued photo-ID before they would be allowed to vote. The law was challenged by voting rights advocates and was upheld by the Appellate Court and ultimately, the Supreme Court. The Appellate Court concluded that the burden placed on potential voters to show a photo-ID was outweighed by the state’s interest in reducing voter fraud.