Current Affairs

  • Quote of the Day: Greenwald

    Can you believe that "in Hosni Mubarak's Egypt," private wealth translates into great political power and vice-versa?  What is it like, wonders the curious and concerned Times reader, to live in a country like that?  No wonder there's an uprising.  How many American politicians with a national platform over the last thirty years have failed to convert their political

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  • Reaching the Breaking Point

    I don't have a lot to say about what's going on in Egypt, but here's what comes to mind. On one level it's complicated, but on another it isn't. It's just about people who have reached a breaking point. People in poor countries reach the breaking point more quickly than people in richer countries. The

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  • Frank Rich on Palin

    The crowds lining up in the cold for her book tour are likely to be the most motivated to line up at the polls in G.O.P. primaries. They don’t speak the same language as Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Michael Steele, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner or, for that matter, McCain. They are more likely to heed Palin

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  • Torture (Updated)

    The question that interests me is not whether torture is sometimes morally acceptable, but whether it is something we can move beyond, as we have done with human sacrifice and slavery.  I'm not saying that  moving beyond some attitude or behavior means that such things are never thought or done, but that certain behaviors become

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  • We’re Getting Intexicated

    Here’s my take on Bush’s SCOTUS appointment of Texas crony Harriet Miers. It’s pretty close to Jack Balkin’s from TPM Cafe. So let him have his say first: George W. Bush has always been an interesting hybrid of the traditional business conservative who came from a powerful Republican family and a religious conservative who found

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