Hello everyone. David and I have been in meetings all day but we made time to check in on the comment thread announcing the move to the Daily Beast and Newsweek. The support in the comments has been remarkable. However, there seems to be some misunderstanging going around so we wanted to clear up a   more

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On the morning of January 1st, I was able to join the panel for Up With Chris Hayes on MSNBC. I’d of course recommend watching both part 1 and part 2 of the show, but if you are short on time, I’d watch part 2   more

We’ve been spending a lot of time on this website critiquing conservatives and libertarians for supporting Ron Paul. However, the great thing about Ron Paul is that his appeal also extends to the most gullible members of the liberal left.
Today’s piece of useful idiocy in support of Ron Paul comes from The Nation where John   more

While I was reading Conor Friedersdorf response to David Frum’s critique of Ron Paul, as well as Andrew Sullivan’s endorsement of Ron Paul, one question kept coming into my mind: “What about former Governor of New Mexico Gary Johnson?”
Friedersdorf makes the case for Ron Paul on the basis that he is different from all the   more

Here is a real effect Occupy Wall Street is having on the liberal left. They will start to blame the current bad economy explicitly on income inequality.
Here is Heather Boushey writing at the Center for American Progress:
Take, for example, the housing bubble of the 2000s. It was facilitated in no small part by exotic mortgages   more

President Obama’s recent speech on income inequality and upward mobility has struck a chord with many Democrats. If the President keeps using this rhetoric, then it could become a central message of the 2012 campaign. If this happens, I would also bet that Elizabeth Warren will give the keynote speech at the Democratic Convention in   more

While reading Maureen Dowd’s New York Times column about Newt Gingrich, we learn that the former Speaker of the House is a big fan of the science fiction novels of Isaac Asimov, and not in a good way:
Speaker Gingrich told me that he became a historian because he read Isaac Asimov’s seven-volume Foundation series about   more

David Frum is concerned that a Newt Gingrich revival will bring back memories of the Clinton impeachment scandal, but what if the real danger is the return of one of the most popular children’s action-adventure shows? I of course refer to the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers.  more

I recently had the great pleasure of hearing economist Hernando de Soto speak to a group of think tank types and media members about his perspective on the Arab Spring. De Soto is most famous as an advocate for property rights for the world’s poor.
Henando de Soto’s big argument about the Arab Spring is that   more

Conservatives give a lot of deference to the opinions of business leaders and other ‘job creators’. The operating assumption is that their criticisms of White House policies are accurate and well informed. What if this assumption is largely off-base?
Consider this roundtable hosted on CNBC between Austan Goolsbee, the former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, and   more

Grover Norquist’s Taxpayer Protection Pledge is not even 100 words long, yet it has been blamed for gridlock in Congress and for making it impossible for Republicans to make any constructive negotiations and compromises over the budget. Because of the importance of the pledge (which commits politicians to never raising income taxes) AEI hosted a   more

Continuing on the theme of identifying conservative intellectuals who are making arguments that show hope for the future of the movement, I’d like to turn the spotlight onto two recent pieces from Ramesh Ponnuru.
To his credit, Ponnuru has used his pulpit from National Review to argue against one of the most pernicious conservative talking points:   more

I had made plans to go to New York to see the “Occupy” encampment at Zuccotti Park before the NYPD broke it up on November 15th. This didn’t stop me from stopping by on Saturday November 19th; I was curious to see how the movement would adapt to not being allowed to have tents in the   more

Rick Perry is calling for legislators to be thrown into jail for insider trading. Perry’s comments are particularly bold given that allegations of insider trading have followed him through his own political career.
Most people forget that Michele Bachmann’s original criticism of Perry’s HPV vaccine mandate in Texas was that it was an exercise in crony capitalism. Perry   more

Anyone who gets drawn into the attempts to modernize the Republican Party inevitably ends up reading about the experiences of the UK and Canadian conservatives. The Canadian Conservatives went through many years in the wilderness before they eventually secured their current governing majority and the British Conservatives are also actively debating how to modernize their   more

Is there a relationship between inequality and mobility? Occupy Wall Street argues that there is one, which is why their message that they are the “99%” carries a dual meaning. They argue that disproportionate wealth is held by the top 1% and that there is no mobility into their ranks. But are these two ideas actually related?  more

You don’t have to accept some of the anarchistic radicalism at Occupy Wall Street to admit that America is a country with high income inequality and low upward mobility. Some Conservatives have tried to obfuscate this reality but others are actually wrestling with it.
A recent issue of National Review is thankfully in this latter camp   more

Post Debate Analysis:
The most memorable moment from the November 9th CNBC debate was Rick Perry’s very embarrassing verbal fumble. (You can watch the video of it here.)
Perry began listing the three departments he would eliminate as president, but stumbled on listing department #3.   more

In the Weekly Standard, Matthew Continetti warns conservatives that the data on income inequality might, just might, not be backing up conservative talking points:
What too many [conservatives] have done is accept the premise that the purpose of government is to lessen inequalities of goods. To dispute the studies on income inequality is not to deny   more

Who is Laurence H. Silberman, the judge who has just written a ruling for the DC Appellate court upholding the President’s healthcare law?
He is a judge who came of age at the time when conservatives were responding to the activism of the Supreme Court in the 50’s and 60’s. He is   more