With Ben Nelson and Kent Conrad telling reporters that the Obama administration and Harry Reid are leaning toward including a public option in the combined Senate health-care reform bill, today should be a banner one for progressive advocacy. When that news is combined with this reporting from Brian Beutler, however, it feels more like a […]
Dylan Matthews
Dylan Matthews was a summer 2008 Prospect editorial intern.
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Regional Zero.
Ha’aretz‘s report that the governments of Israel and Iran have been conducting discussions on nuclear issues is encouraging enough, but this specific tidbit is astonishing (via Blake Hounshell): During the meetings, [Israeli diplomat Meirav] Zafary-Odiz explained the Israeli policy of being willing, in principle, to discuss the Middle East as a nuclear-free zone. She also […]
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Libertarianism without Liberty.
Reason just published an incredibly revealing discussion on the question of whether libertarians should oppose interference from cultural actors — such as religion or the patriarchy — as well as from government. Kerry Howley persuasively argues those who oppose coercion from the state have an obligation to oppose coercion from oppressive non-state actors like, say, […]
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Dealing with the Iranian Nuclear Problem.
Big news out of Vienna this morning, as International Atomic Energy Agency director Mohamed ElBaradei announced that the US, Russia, and France had reached a limited deal with Iran to curb its nuclear programs. Here are what details we know at the moment: If approved, the deal would commit Iran to temporarily exporting 75 percent […]
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My Rights Versus Yours.
Robert Bernstein, founder of Human Rights Watch, is highly disappointed that his organization would apply the same standards to Israel that it does to every other nation. Scott Lemieux has ably picked apart his curious claim that any nation acting in self-defense gets to play by some looser set of moral standards. His relativism about […]
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Never Catering to None.
Via Nick Baumann, McClatchy’s Kevin Hall has written a blockbuster investigation into the rating agency Moody’s. After the house market tanked in late 2007, Moody’s starting firing analysts and executives in large numbers. Far from punishing those who didn’t see the crash coming, however, the firm targeted those who saw the warning signs: A McClatchy […]
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By Way of Introduction.
(For the next month we’ll be joined by weekly guest bloggers here at TAPPED. Love TAPPED? We’re hiring.) Hello all! I’m Dylan, and I’ll be one of your guestbloggers. This feels a bit like a homecoming, as I wrote my fair share of TAPPED posts two summers ago when I interned at TAP, and filled […]
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Don’t Know from Adam
Adam seeks to raise awareness of Asperger’s Syndrome, but does it do much good for those who have it?
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LET’S ABOLISH THE WORLD’S GREATEST DELIBERATIVE BODY.
By Dylan Matthews I hesitate to self-promote too shamelessly on Ezra’s turf, but I have a new piece up at Campus Progress building on a guest-post I wrote here a few months ago. Basically, I want to get rid of the US Senate, and asked a number of constitutional law experts how one would go […]
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AFTERNOON INTERLUDE: SPECIAL “THE SWEDES ARE COMING” EDITION.
By Dylan Matthews Nordic socialism is terrifying: You know, when segments like this are airing on programs with viewership as high as The Daily Show‘s, Harold Meyerson’s “Glenn Beck will bring socialism to America” theory starts going from funny to plausible. And for good measure, here’s Robyn talking about how socialism has helped make Swedish […]
