Yuval Levin was a staff manager of the Bush-era “President’s Council on Bioethics”, a body widely derided for its almost comically right-wing leanings and gross intellectual malfeasance. Today he steps in it trying to say something all clever and sophisticated about the new authori...

Martin Kramer is a “fellow” of the usual assortment of right-wing full-employment societies (Olin Institute, etc.). He suffers from a textbook case of Conservative Reading Comprehension Disorder. Right now he’s all het up because he’s got the goods on “Chas Freeman̶...

The “homeless cellphone” story (see next post) keeps growing. The Chicago Tribune online site had the first story (from pool reporters’ notes), but the Washington Post has its own version that almost glows with the warmth of simple, truly simple, decency - the basic and fundamental...

Apparently, disposable cellphones are the new color TVs. K-Lo, and a lot of other people, are all worked up over the fact that one of the guys in line at a soup kitchen where Michelle Obama was volunteering the other day was shown in news photos holding a cellphone. Where Do You Send the Bill? Ameri...

I dunno . . . I think Nia-Malika Henderson, a black reporter at Politico, is reaching too far with her claim that Obama is speaking “dog-whistle code” to blacks by using contemporary slang expressions. I think she has a much too uncritical take on the issue, and both unfairly tars Obama ...

Somebody at the Department of Labor just re-posted this original report from 1965. It is heart-wrenching in how closely its high-level observations (aside from particulars of detail that have changed in 40 years) remain true, and to what degree the “savage and brutal effort” of so many p...

At ObWi: The problem with the modern GOP is that it takes an absolutist position on the role of government in terms of providing services to the people: government is the problem, and never the solution. Bobby Jindal even went as far as to critique disaster prevention provisions in his rebuttal last...

OK - so I’ve just stumbled across this “ex-gay” clown I hadn’t head of before: Michael Glatze. Apparently he was a medium-size fish in gay media - co-founded a successful gay-oriented magazine, made an award-winning documentary - starting around the late 90s, until “...

Nate Silver calls bullshit on George Will’s latest foray into scientific commentary. And he’s got a lot of good points in there. However, blog solidarity requires me to point out that pointing out Will’s stupidity and dishonesty on matters scientific is sooooo six months ago. UPDAT...

One marvels at how simply, egregiously, bone-deep dumb the most prominent conservatives are. I have often referred to Conservative Reading Comprehension Disorder - the almost invariable phenomenon by which right-wingers simply and unmistakeably fail to understand what they are talking about when the...