Andrew Sullivan's Blog, page 2800
June 30, 2010
Surveying The Surveillance State
David Kravets highlights a new ACLU report (.pdf) that provides "an outline of, and links to, dozens of examples of Cold War-era snooping in the modern age":
At a California State University, Fresno lecture on veganism, six ofthe 60 in attendance were undercover officers from the local and campuspolice. The Oakland Police Department in California had infiltrated apolice-brutality demonstration, and its undercover officers selected"the route of the march." ... A Kentucky minister was...
The "Easy" Social Security Fix
McArdle pounces:
This is coming up over and over again--an "easy" fix for
Security wherein "all" we have to do is get rid of the cap on
Security payroll taxes, without increasing benefits. Dylan
has the charts that are currently making the rounds, which show
this [simple:] solution not only eliminates the Social Security
but also generates a substantial surplus!This is not actuallysurprising, since what this amounts to is hiking the marginal tax rateson...
Glenn Beck's Reading List
Jonah Goldberg has a strange defense of Glenn Beck against Matt Continetti (because Beck liked his book, one imagines). Friedersdorf interjects:
What Mr. Continetti "seems" to be doing, Mr.Goldberg writes (italics indicate weasel words), isn't "incorrect" or"poorly argued" or "confused" -- it would be perfectly fair, ifwrongheaded, if Mr. Goldberg used those words -- what he seems to be doing is "an odd thing for a conservative writer, particularly one at the Standard,to do." It is never a...
Quote For The Day II
Don't Just Stand There; Do Nothing
Yglesias has a staggering little chart today on our looming fiscal crisis. Money quote:
See that line where the debt:GDP ratio is stable? That's what happens under current law. If congress changes nothing, or the president vetoes everything, then this is what happens. No apocalypse. But nobody believes that's going to happen. Nobody believes the Bush tax cuts will fully expire. Nobody expects the AMT phase-in to happen. Nobody expects physicians' Medicare reimbursement rates to be held in...
The Final Solution?
Many of us have long been worried about the attempt by scientists to prevent homosexuality - or any variation in gender behavior - in utero. Well: the future is now:
Pediatric endocrinologist Maria New—of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Florida International University—isn't just trying to prevent lesbianism by treating pregnant women with an experimental hormone. She's also trying to prevent the births of girls who display an "abnormal" disinterest in babies, don't want to play with...
Quote For The Day
"As I look out at the political landscape now, I find plenty of slogans on the Republican side, but not very many ideas. And indeed, if you raise specific ideas and solutions, as I tried to do on health care with Ron Wyden, you are attacked with the same vigor as we've seen in American politics all the way back to the arguments over slavery and polygamy. You are attacked as being a wimp, insufficiently pure, and unreliable ... The pendulum will swing. And we will take control of the House -- ...
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