Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 2680

Marijuana Goes Mainstream?

Chris Good reports on Jane Hamsher's new effort:

As of this afternoon, a new coalition will officially be
for marijuana legalization across the country; it will consist
Students for a Sensible Drug Policy and FDL Action, along with
allies (of both liberal and conservative alignments) who
previously spoken out in favor of legalization.
ButHamsher is the new entrant, and she's launching a $500,000 (accordingto her estimate) coordinated campaign to support marijuana...

Tweet Of The Day

Via Bilerico.

Bilerico Project - Africa - WWW - Clients - Religion and Spirituality

What Broke The Senate?

This George Packer article on the Senate is getting a lot of love from liberal blogs. Bernstein thinks it's "sort of a hodgepodge":

The problems in the Senate today are pretty much entirely about thethird thing that Packer discusses: partisanship and full exploitationof the Senate rules to create obstacles to the Senate working at all. Packer's story about the banking bill and Senator Corker, I think, isthe key one.  In that case, it turned out that none of the otherproblems of the Senate...

Top Secret America, Ctd

A reader writes:

Typically Posner fails to analyze the many key differences between IBM and the Security State. He posits a simple comparison and expects us to fall over satisfied due to the reflected brilliance of his own ego. He ignores that in many ways IBM was too big and that's why Microsoft and others ate much of its potentially profitable lunch for years and years.

IBM lost many, many business opportunities because of its immensities, including a significant amount of domestic...

The Republican Who Gives Me Hope, Ctd

Contra Drum, Ezra Klein defends Rep. Paul Ryan:

For a long time, liberals were talking about the sort of things youwould actually have to do to get health-care spending under controlwhile conservatives simply criticized the downsides of thoseintimidating reforms. And the main thing you have to do is gethealth-care spending into a single budget and then stick to it. You cando that by having the government set payment rates for providers or byhaving it set subsidies for individuals. Democrats...

Faces Of The Day

  

Israelis wear masks with the face of abducted Israeli soldier Gilad
Shalit during a human chain protest in which they circled the Prime
Minister's residency in Jerusalem on August 3, 2010 calling for Shalit's
release and marking 1500 days since their son was abducted by
Palestinian militants in June 2006. By Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images.

Gilad Shalit - Jerusalem - Prime Minister - Israel Defense Forces - Israel

Fear, Not Hate

A shrewd analysis of why Prop 8 passed in 2008: the swing voters were not African-Americans but parents with kids under 18 at home:

The Yes on 8 campaign targeted parents in its TV ads. "Mom! Guess
what I learned in school today!" were the cheery-frightening first words
of the supporters' most-broadcast ad.

They emerged from the mouth of a
young girl who had supposedly just learned that she could marry a
when she grew up.

Among the array of untrue ideas that parents could easily...

Hollywood Getting The Internet

Gabe highlights another example of late-night talk shows' growing obsolescence:

Remember a couple of years ago when Between Two Ferns was just another wonderfully enjoyable web seriesstarring a favorite but little-known comedian interviewing whoever wasavailable? Now it's a full-fledged viral marketing tool for thefull-fledged movie stars that are in it, and no one is a little-knowncomedian anymore. This week's new episode came to my attention in a publicity email from Paramount for Dinner...

Beyond Public Austerity

Ross Douthat:

...too many conservatives have convinced themselves that "re-commit to limited government" is the only political lesson the post-Bush Republican Party needs to learn. It's true that the G.O.P.'s modest resurgence has been fueled by voter backlash against the various expansions of government being passed and contemplated by the Obama administration. But despite what many on the right believe, Republicans didn't lose in 2006 and 2008 because they were insufficiently committed to...

Why Not Call Obama A Socialist?

Frum tries to talk some sense into the Republican base:

Conservatives who fume against the president's supposed
are chasing phantoms: railing against dead ideas while failing
notice the actual gathering dangers to economic liberty and
prosperity.

It's not the red hand of socialism we have to fear. It's the dead hand of the status quo. An example:

In 2009, the US health economy reached a symbolic tipping point: forthe first time, more than 50% of the dollars spent on health...