There it was, just sitting there, on my web browser, which I had opened a short time earlier. I stared at the title for what seemed like hours, but couldn't have been more than a few minutes. "Paul Ryan's Inner City Education," it said. "Buzzfeed.com," it said. "McKay Coppins," it said. "I know I should … Continue reading My Buzzfeed Dot Com Education

Rick Santorum decided to take his talents to Hollywood to prepare for another losing presidential campaign make movies that religious conservatives could enjoy, but he's missing his true calling as a creator of high-quality science fiction: Appearing on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" to promote his new book "Blue Collar Conservatives," Santorum was asked whether he thought … Continue reading “And then they told me that they all secretly wished they could vote for me too”

My new piece at Lobe Log looks at the dismal state of affairs in Kiev, where effective, stable governance is needed probably more than any other place on Earth but where, based on recent history and on the stable of characters currently circling around the capital, there's almost no chance it will get any in … Continue reading Dysfuctional Eastern European nation ISO decent government for LTR, MBA

A few days ago, Talking Points Memo posted a story about Allyson Schwartz, one of the Democrats running to unseat incumbent Pennsylvania governor, and the man who slow-rolled the Jerry Sandusky investigation so it wouldn't cost him in the 2010 governor's race, Classy Freddie Blassie Tom Corbett. Whoever wins the Democratic primary has a good … Continue reading Pennsylvania is not really “a Democratic stronghold”

I haven't done a very good job of keeping up with this Cliven Bundy story, mostly because it broke while I was deliberately avoiding the news on vacation, but I must say that I'm simply shocked to find out that a right-winger who denies the authority of the federal government is also racist. After all, … Continue reading The real racists, etc.

There seems to have been a breakthrough in the Iran talks, at least according to Iranian media (which, grain of salt and all), around the issue of the heavy-water IR-40 reactor at Arak, which was one of the disputes at the heart of the talks. The upshot is that Iran is willing to run the … Continue reading Potential agreement on Arak clears one obstacle to an Iran nuclear deal, up at Lobe Log

This went up while I was away, and so great was my desire to actually be on vacation that I didn't even think to link to it here. It's a piece on the ongoing slap fight between the CIA and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence over whether and how to release the committee's report … Continue reading Reflecting on America’s sins, my (now week-old, sorry!) piece at Lobe Log

Hey out there. Since I was gone for a week I thought the best thing to do a thing that I could try on my first post back would be to collect a few random things I missed while I was away. Since there's nobody here to stop me, here goes: In a move that's … Continue reading Random wonderments while I was away

One of Sullivan's readers tries to find some common ground with him on the subjects of Mozilla's decision to promote and promptly fire accept the resignation of would-be CEO Brendan Eich (because he donated to support the awful Prop 8 campaign in California) and Brandeis University's decision to extend and promptly revoke an offer to … Continue reading So, they’re just like pundits, then?

Reihan Salam has a very Hot Take in Slate, "Why I Am Still a Neocon," in which he says he is still a neoconservative because, well, here's what he wrote: Given all of this, why am I still a neocon? Why do I still believe that the U.S. should maintain an overwhelming military edge over … Continue reading The inconvenient fact that words mean things