FIGHTING WORDS

Hugh Baran: "How can the LGBT community hold the Democratic Party to account when it continues to support candidates who vote against their interests?" Stephan Goetz and Hema Swaminathan: "After carefully and comprehensively accounting for other local determinants of changes in poverty, we find that the presence of Wal-Mart was unequivocally associated with smaller reductions in family-poverty rates in U.S. counties during the 1990s relative to places that had no store." Jo-Ann Mort: "George Bush is waging a war in Iraq supposedly to bring democracy to the Middle East. That isn't happening. But for the democratic left and progressives generally to be serious opponents of this war, we must be impeccable in our stance."