Media

In 1971, Alaskan Senator Mike Gravel assisted Daniel Ellsberg by including the Pentagon Papers in the public record, putting himself at risk of indictment. In the subsequent case Gravel_v._United_States, the Supreme Court held that Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution protected the senator from prosecution.

The following is a published Letter to the Editor to the New York Times in response to their editorial "The Decline of North Carolina."

The attack on voting rights in North Carolina is a shameful attempt by the state’s politicians to curtail access to the ballot, in ways devised particularly to discourage voting by African-Americans.

Low-wage workers employed under federal concession and lease agreements went on strike at Union Station on Thursday, calling on President Obama to guarantee them a living wage and a voice on the job.

The most often repeated attack on the Affordable Care Act is that the law is a "job killer" -- an anti-business spool of red tape that will strangle free enterprise from coast to coast. 

In fact, though, one of the biggest obstacles that entrepreneurs face when starting a new business is affording health insurance. Leaving a job where you have coverage to do your own thing has been very costly -- since individuals have tended to face the highest premiums in a deeply dysfunctional insurance market. 

If you think Wall Street has cleaned up its act after a global financial disaster and then sweeping reform legislation, think again. A new survey by Labaton Sucharow, a law firm that represents Wall Street whistleblowers, has revealed that the financial services industry still has profound ethical problems. 

Well, that’s embarrassing. McDonald’s sample budget for its employees lays bare the reality of trying to make it on a food service job at $7.72 an hour (mildly above the federal minimum wage of $7.25). 

We knew Congress was going to slash SNAP benefits in the latest, House version of the farm bill -- despite any number of compromise suggestions (largely misguided) to increase work requirements, impose new asset tests, and so on. 

Instead of debating such compromises, however, the House decided it was more convenient to simply remove food stamps from the farm bill altogether, and as House Speaker John Boehner said, leave SNAP benefits for "later."

Among all that has been written since the Trayvon Martin verdict, the Washington Post’s Richard Cohen may take the cake for his ability to combine factual errors with ridiculous hyperbole. Cohen opens his op-ed by saying: