You’ll be shocked to learn it comes from Bill Kristol. Outraged that President Obama would offer a moral justification for removing the ban on gay Americans serving in the military, Kristol writes this: Here is contemporary liberalism in a nutshell: No need to consider costs as well as benefits. No acknowledgment of competing goods or […]
Paul Waldman
Paul Waldman is a weekly columnist and senior writer for The American Prospect. He also writes for the Plum Line blog at The Washington Post and The Week and is the author of Being Right Is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn From Conservative Success.
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Obama the Ideologue?
One of the most interesting moments of President Obama‘s tete-a-tete with House Republicans on Friday was when he said, “I’m not an ideologue.” He was greeted with laughter, which led him to reply, somewhat incredulously, “I’m not.” I’m personally sure that what was going through his head when he heard the snickers was, “Are you […]
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The Battle Over Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
By advocating for a kinder and gentler form of marriage inequality, conservatives may have accidentally ceded the argument for keeping gays out of the military.
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The Obama Defense Budget.
Using the handy historical tables of the budget the White House put out today, I created this graph to show just how radical Barack Obama‘s agenda to disarm America and surrender to the terrorists really is: The administration is requesting just under $750 billion for defense for next year, or over $2,400 for every man, […]
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Faster, Higher, Under Constant Surveillance.
Those mascots look suspiciously performance-enhanced. (VANOC/COVAN) The Winter Olympics start week after next. As those of us who love this stuff get ready to watch the various events of shushing, sliding, and spinning, it might be worth taking a moment to consider what these athletes — most of whom will never gain riches and fame […]
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Big Government, Big Lasers
(The interior of the NIF target chamber. Credit is given to Lawrence Livermore National Security, LLC, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the Department of Energy under whose auspices this work was performed.) At a time when we’re arguing vehemently about what government should and shouldn’t be doing, I thought I’d point out something pretty amazing […]
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Marijuana Legalization Initiative Advances in California.
It looks like backers of a marijuana legalization initiative in California have gathered the signatures they need to get on the ballot this fall. Depending on your perspective, this is either a tribute to the power of ordinary people to enact commonsense change when their government is too timid to do so, or more evidence […]
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Don’t Mess with Nancy Pelosi.
If there’s one reason to think that health-care reform will still succeed, it has to be because of the speaker of the House. Here’s what she said Thursday, via Greg Sargent: You go through the gate. If the gate’s closed, you go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we’ll pole-vault in. If […]
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Devolution In the U.K.
A few weeks ago, in a column about the politicized nature of science in America, I noted that according to international data, Americans express far greater skepticism about evolution than citizens of any other Western democracy. Well, it looks like there are some in the U.K. who would like to catch up, and they’re working […]
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Where Was the Narrative?
There’s no law requiring that State of the Union addresses be dull, overlong lists of provisions and proposals, but it has certainly come to seem that way.
