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Oversight | It’s time for a new Church Committee ASK THIS The Senate took a hard look at intelligence activities in the 1970s, and questions asked then bear repeating now, verbatim. Starting with, “Which governmental agencies have engaged in domestic spying,” and, “How many citizens have been targets of Governmental intelligence activity?” 
Social policy backfire | Does mass incarceration make us safer? ASK THIS Harvard sociologist Bruce Western writes that our society’s attempt to increase public safety through an ever-increasing reliance on imprisonment may instead be having the opposite effect, by undermining families and cleaving poor black communities from the mainstream of American life.
In Iraq | Who's the enemy? ASK THIS Robert Dreyfuss writes that it's getting harder to find any bad guys in Iraq. So maybe it's time to get out, and cede control to a new Iraqi government untainted by American oversight.
| AARP and the privatization of Medicare ASK THIS Medicare Advantage plans are heavily subsidized, private plans that are luring older citizens away from Medicare. AARP is both criticizing this practice and taking part in it at the same time. What’s AARP up to here, and why aren’t news organizations doing a better job in reporting the drain on Medicare?
Tortured results | Real plots or false confessions? ASK THIS President Bush has listed four terrorist attacks he says his administration prevented thanks to the CIA's harsh interrogations. But what do we really know about these alleged plots that he now says should be so central to the public debate over torture? Not much.
Civil service | How badly has Bush damaged the federal government? ASK THIS A Princeton political scientist proposes questions that would help determine if this administration’s actions to politicize the bureaucracy have done serious damage to government competence.
Iraq watch | Success in al-Anbar: Can it be sustained? ASK THIS Middle East expert Wayne White writes that our new bottom-up alliances have great potential – as long as we don’t overstay our welcome. But they also may be setting the stage for a supercharged civil war.
Homeownership | Was subprime lending all bad? ASK THIS A Harvard professor of housing studies points out that new mortgage products opened the doors to homeownership for many who have not defaulted.
Worst U.S. nuclear weapons breakdown ever? | A B-52 with six armed nuclear missiles flew over the U.S. for 3-1/2 hours. What’s the story here? ASK THIS Defense expert Philip Coyle wants to know why these weapons were being moved in the first place, why they were sent to Barksdale Air Force Base, how long it was before the error was discovered and how many other such errors have there been. He points out that except in all-out nuclear war, nuclear weapons are supposed to be transported as cargo in special, secure aircraft or in trucks—not in operational aircraft.
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