For Labor Day in 1956 the Young Republicans produced this poster celebrating American workers: This seems so remote from the ideas espoused by many of today’s radicalized Tea Party Republicans that you might think it’s a joke, but in fact … Continue reading
Amusing as usual, and probably not safe for work, also as usual: The Daily ShowGet More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook One thing that gets sailed right over: Obama’s proposal would cut … Continue reading
A friend of mine once insisted that laws against same-sex marriage don’t reduce the rights of gay men and women because they have the exact same right as straight men and women to marry someone of the opposite sex. I … Continue reading
At the Time Magazine website, reporter Michael Grunwald (the author of a book mentioned here Friday) laments bad reporting about the current budget negotiations: It’s really amazing to see political reporters dutifully passing along Republican complaints that President Obama’s opening … Continue reading
There’s a lot of talk of “filibuster reform,” but the Democratic proposal could be more accurately described as restoring the filibuster. The Senate has traditionally permitted unlimited debate and discussion of a bill before the final vote was taken. As … Continue reading
I haven’t yet read my copy of Michael Grunwald’s The New New Deal on the Obama stimulus, but I did just read Ryan Cooper’s review of it in The Washington Monthly, and it looks quite interesting. Unlike other journalists covering … Continue reading
One of my favorite magazines is The Washington Monthly, which was started several decades ago by lawyer and JFK White House staffer Charlie Peters with the goal of reporting on what government actually does, not just what politicians talk about. … Continue reading
I’ve seen a host of different ways of showing on a map what parts of the country voted for Obama versus Romney. The most common simply shows each state colored red or blue bases on which way its electoral votes … Continue reading
In an article for The American Conservative, Bruce Bartlett, a lifelong conservative with impressive credentials (GOP congressional staffer, Heritage Foundation, Cato, positions in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, conservative writer and newspaper columnist), recounts how he … Continue reading
This is a quite interesting half-hour panel discussion hosted by the Institute of Art and Ideas in Britain on Steven Pinker’s 2011 book The Better Angels of Our Nature (which I reviewed in this earlier post). Participants include Pinker himself, … Continue reading