Quotes from Adam Cohen

The anti-New Deal line is wrong as a matter of economics. F.D.R.'s spending programs did help the economy and created millions of new jobs.

It was not until the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s that Congress got serious about the assignment laid out in the post-Civil War amendments.

The blogosphere makes it possible to have a sprawling national conversation about the hard times - often among people who would never find each other offline.

There is no way to undo what happened in the Zimmerman-Martin encounter, but some good can still come of it: it could lead states to repeal their misguided 'Stand your ground' laws.

One way to reduce the need for layoffs would be to cut back on hours, spreading the available work among more employees.

If the FBI gets the 'back doors' it wants, Internet services would be required to create a massive online infrastructure for law enforcement to spy on members of the public.

Ballot formats should be standardized nationally rather than left to the often bad judgment of local officials.

Conservative Justices have a history of not standing by their professed commitment to judicial restraint.

To a generation beaten down by skyrocketing unemployment, plunging retirement savings, and mounting home foreclosures, 'Mad Men' offers the schadenfreude-filled message that their predecessors were equally unhappy - and that the bleakness meter in American life has always been set on high.

The United States may be a religious nation. But it is also a nation with a strong commitment to separation of church and state.

To be rejected on account of old age may or may not feel the same as being rejected on the basis of race or sex. But it is clearly unjust and dehumanizing, and the law should take it more seriously than it does.

If a company knows it may have to pay a large amount of money if it poses an unreasonable threat to others, it will have a strong incentive to act better.

Escapism makes a lot of intuitive sense - whisk people away from their cares with stories of a better life.

There is something not entirely satisfying about an online memorial.

In a perfect world, we would have put users in control of their information when the Internet was first created.

The Supreme Court's most conservative Justices have presented themselves as great respecters of precedent and opponents of 'judicial activism' - of judges using the Constitution to strike down laws passed by the elected branches of government. If they are true to those principles, they should uphold rent control.

When the gun lobby fights gun-control legislation, its logic is clear: it does not like laws that prevent people from owning or using guns.

For technology companies, information about what people do online is extremely valuable - it can be used to sell targeted advertising or sold to data clearinghouses.

Vampires are sleek demons for good times. They suavely leech off society - like investment bankers who plunder outsize shares of deals for themselves or rapacious fund managers.

Set in the advertising world of the 1960s, 'Mad Men' is stunning to look at - a Camelot-era parade of smartly dressed professionals lounging around on midcentury modern furniture.

The press should not get special privileges - if they drive recklessly or put people in danger, they should be subject to every reckless driving and endangerment law on the books - but they should also not be singled out for special punishment.

'Hard Times' does not romanticize the Depression, but at least a few of Mr. Terkel's subjects managed to find silver linings.

Law graduates have always ended up in business, government, journalism and other fields. Law schools could do more to build these subjects into their coursework.

The first thing to understand about surveillance video in public places is that there is already a lot of it going on - though it is impossible to know how much.