It’s painful how close New York is to passing a same-sex marriage bill. The governor supports it; the state assembly supports it. Exactly half of 62 state senators support it. If one more senator would sign on, it would pass. But [after a four hour meeting](http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/new-york-senate-republicans-undecided-about-whether-to-allow-same-sex-marriage-vote/) discussing the bill this afternoon, Senate leaders would still […]
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Jailhouse Crock
Rep. Peter King’s hearings on Islamic radicalization in prison ignore the real extremists.
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White House: It’s Not A War When Americans Aren’t Dying
The administration has released its rationale for why it’s not in violation of the War Powers Act despite being engaged in military operations in Libya without congressional approval, and it’s a doozy: The two senior administration lawyers contended that American forces have not been in “hostilities” at least since April 7, when NATO took over […]
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Charisma and the Candidate
As a campaigner, [**Mitt Romney** is awkward](http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/after-debate-romney-searches-new-hampshire-for-votes-and-laughs/2011/06/14/AGnTpmUH_story.html). It’s surprising that he’s as awkward as he is, because he made his career in business, where charisma is valued as an X factor that makes CEOs great. A quick search on Forbes reveals a wealth of tips to cultivate charisma, and it seems like someone as ambitious […]
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Wisconsin Court Reinstates Anti-Labor Legislation
The Supreme Court of Wisconsin yesterday overruled lower court rulings that prevented the legislature’s stripping of collective bargaining rights from public employees from going into effect. The bare 4-3 majority held that the courts could not prevent an Act from being published and going into effect, and that in any case the state’s Open Meetings […]
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Bloggingheads: GOP Debate Edition
I have a new bloggingheads with Daniel Foster of National Review on the GOP 2012 field, Libya and Syria, and some Game of Thrones nerdery: Given the state of affairs abroad, Thrones was really the most fun to talk about.
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Today at The Prospect
David Callahan writes that the GOP has softened their position on taxes when they voted to repeal tax breaks for the ethanol industry yesterday. John Frank profiles the astonishingly unpopular Florida governor, Rick Scott.
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Courts Reject Ludicrous Prop 8 Recusal Argument
Dahlia Lithwick had a definitive piece earlier this week on the remarkably silly and offensive argument that Judge Vaughn Walker was bound to recuse himself from hearing a case on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage because he was involved in same-sex relationship. Rights claims seem to be especially likely to bring out reactionary assumptions that […]
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The CIA’s Escalation In Yemen
Kevin Drum asks an odd question in response to the CIA beginning operations in Yemen: I know I’m not the first to ask this, but exactly what theory of military action allows President Obama to do this without congressional approval? In Afghanistan and Nicaragua in the 80s, you could argue that we were merely funding […]
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Suffering and Redemption
The paragraph of the day, from Aleksandar Hemon’s harrowing story (paywalled) in the New Yorkerof his daughter’s illness and death from a brain tumor: One of the most despicable religious fallacies is that suffering is ennobling — that it is a step on the path to some kind of enlightenment or salvation. Isabel’s suffering and […]
