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The Hard Truth About Fact-Checking

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New Republic - By Alec MacGillis - Dec. 21 (Opinion) - My colleague Jonathan Cohn and plenty of others have done yeoman's work today in challenging PolitiFact's awarding of its "lie of the year" award to the Democrats' claim that the Paul Ryan proposal approved by House Republican would "end Medicare." There's little more to say on the substance of the matter. But the moment does present a new opportunity to ask a larger question that has been nagging at me the past year or two: why do we need fact-checkers, anyway?

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Rick Perry: The God-Fearing, Know-Nothing, Pistol-Packing Embodiment Of Liberals’ Worst Nightmares

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New Republic - By Walter Shapiro - Aug. 24 (Opinion) - What Rick Perry has achieved in his inaugural strut on the political stage is unprecedented in the annals of modern conservative history from Barry Goldwater to Sarah Palin. It is not just that the Texas governor has dominated the news cycle, overshadowed the Iowa Straw Poll, vaulted over every GOP contender except Mitt Romney in the national polls, and reduced Karl Rove to sputtering frustration. All that is admittedly impressive for a first-time candidate whose name was familiar to only half of Republican voters just a few weeks ago. But what sets Perry apart and earns him his niche in the far right corner of Mount Rushmore has nothing to do with the gyrations of the 2012 campaign. Indeed, Perry is not only a presidential candidate, but also a cowboy-booted sociological experiment. It is almost as if Perry’s political persona was constructed by bundling together all the fears and phantoms in the left-wing anxiety closet. Since the hysteria of the 1950s Red Scare, no Republican figure has matched Perry in his God-given ability to give liberals the heebie-jeebies. Others can rival the governor’s disdain for academic achievement (Palin), his cross-on-the-sleeve religiosity (Michele Bachmann and Mike Huckabee), and his antipathy to Social Security and Medicare (Paul Ryan and Barry Goldwater). But never before has a top-tier presidential candidate embodied the whole lethal package—and more: 1. Anti-Intellectualism. Liberals revere high SAT scores. That is why it is no accident that, over the past century, the Democrats have nominated for president five former college or law school professors (Woodrow Wilson, John W. Davis, George McGovern, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama) plus Hubert Humphrey, who was a graduate teaching fellow while working on a Ph.D.

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Drew Westen's Nonsense

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New Republic - By Jonathan Chait - Aug. 08 (Opinion) - There are some strong criticisms to be made of the Obama administration from the left, especially concerning Obama's passive response to the debt ceiling hostage crisis, and his frightening willingness to give away the store to John Boehner. I've made many of these criticisms myself. But Drew Westen's lengthy, attention-grabbing Sunday New York Times op-ed is not a strong criticism. It's a parody of liberal fantasizing.

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How Clinton Handled His Debt Ceiling Crisis Better Than Obama

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New Republic - By Kara Brandeisky - Aug. 02 (News Analysis) - “If they send me a budget that says simply, ‘You take our cuts or we’ll let the country go into default,’ I will veto it,” Clinton said at the time, calling Republican tactics “economic blackmail.”

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The Bush Deficit

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New Republic - By Jonathan Cohn - Jul. 26 (Special Report) - 'Critics of President Obama never tire of blaming him for today's high deficits. But if blame belongs with one president, it belongs with Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush. The chart in this article, which the New York Times created based upon figures from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, illustrates this point very clearly. But it's worth reviewing the history here, because while it's familiar to most of us who follow politics it doesn't seem to get a lot of attention in the political debate.' Jonathan Cohn, The New Republic

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Section 4 Of The 14th Amendment Was Designed To Stop Boehner

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New Republic - By Jonathan Chait - Jul. 01 (Opinion) - Balkin does not suggest, nor do I, that the legal merits are open and shut. It's certainly risky to take a flyer in the middle of a debt crisis. But if we do reach h-hour, we're probably better off if the Treasury simply announces it's going to continue to pay the bills and dares Republicans to take them to court than repudiating the debt, right?

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Should We Blame Health Care Reform If Republicans Win In 2012?

Sun, 26 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New Republic - By Harold Pollack - Jun. 26 (Opinion) - President Obama must raise his game to win reelection, and to make his presidency as worthy and effective as it can be. His committed pursuit of health reform was not the problem. We’ll see soon enough whether health reform helps him win a second term. It certainly made him more deserving of one.

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Too Much Judgment

Mon, 23 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New Republic - By Tiffany Stanley - May. 23 (Opinion) - Sure, it’s an interesting story when a fringe group decides the world is ending tomorrow. But it’s also a small story. Come Sunday morning, as news articles flood in about the disillusioned end-timers, and those articles instantly become some of the most popular on the web—as they surely will—we might want to ask ourselves not what is wrong with this sad group of apocalyptic believers, but rather what is wrong with a society that takes such pleasure in their dysfunction.

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Tim Pawlenty's Cash Problem

Mon, 23 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New Republic - By Walter Shapiro - May. 23 (Opinion) - With Mitch Daniels officially out of the presidential race, it seems like the entire GOP is emulating Ethelred the Unready. Well, not quite everyone. In a contrarian move at odds with the Reluctant Republican ethos of the party, former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty will actually make it official by declaring his candidacy today in Des Moines.

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It's Either A Ransom Or A Bargain, Not Both

Sat, 14 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New Republic - By Jonathan Chait - May. 14 (Opinion) - The debt ceiling negotiations are very hard to figure out, because every side has an incentive to keep its bottom line hidden from public view. That said, I don't understand what President Obama is thinking here. First, he's allowed Republicans to turn the debt ceiling into an opportunity to wrench policy concessions, something that has never happened before. If he announced from the outset that debt ceiling votes have never been bargaining chips for policy changes, and that he would only sign a clean debt ceiling hike, and any failure to raise the debt ceiling is the GOP's responsibility, do you think Republicans could stand up to pressure from business? I don't. But we'll never know because Obama gave up that leverage immediately.

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The Immortal Terrorist

Mon, 02 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New Republic - By Jonathan Kay - May. 02 (Opinion) - In my research into radical ideological movements, I’ve found that this sort of reaction is common. The psychological trigger is the death of a leader who is cast as the embodiment of some larger-than-life cause. It doesn’t matter whether the cause is good or evil—the psychological phenomenon is amoral.

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Five Things You Might Not Know About The Republican Budget, Part Five: Less Deficit Reduction Than You Think

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New Republic - By Jonathan Cohn - Apr. 29 (News) - the small deficit reduction would mask a very large redistribution of wealth--and not the kind Republicans always accuse Democrats of trying. The tax cuts, which include reductions in the top rate, would overwhelmingly benefit the rich. The spending cuts, which include a huge reduction in Medicaid spending, would primarily affect the poor.

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Liberals: Don’t Even Consider Gloating About Donald Trump

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New Republic - By The New Republic - Apr. 29 (Opinion) - Now that Donald Trump appears on the verge of launching a presidential campaign, it is worth reflecting on the meaning of this low moment in American political history. Trump is a clown and a buffoon, and the odds of him winning even one Republican caucu

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New York Times Vs. Wikileaks: The Guantánamo Documents

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New Republic - Apr. 27 (Opinion) -

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The Trouble With Independents

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New Republic - By Michael Kazin, - Apr. 26 (Opinion) - No group in American politics gets more respect than independent voters. Pundits and reporters probe what these allegedly moderate citizens think about this issue and that candidate, major party strategists seek the golden mean of messaging that will attract independents to their camp and/or alienate them from the opposing one. Presidential nominees and aides struggle to come up with phrases and settings that will soothe or excite them. But what if millions of independents are really just a confused and clueless horde, whose interest in politics veers between the episodic and the non-existent?

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Running Man

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New Republic - By William Galston - Apr. 15 (Opinion) - Given current national trends and a credible Republican nominee, the presidential election would be very, very close, and President Obama might even lose.

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Does Not Compute

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New Republic - By Jonathan Chait - Apr. 07 (Opinion) - The new GOP budget unveiled by Paul Ryan is a wildly cruel document. Yet pointing this out, as Democrats keep doing, seems only to flatter Ryan’s self-conception as a serious man telling hard truths. So let me instead concede Ryan’s moral premises. (Throw tens of millions of people off health care? Why not! Slash food stamps? It’ll just inspire the next Dickens!) Instead, let’s judge Ryan by his own standards. Does his plan, however cruel, actually address our fiscal realities?

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Inside the Intervention

Sat, 02 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New Republic - By Steven Metz - Apr. 02 (Opinion) - Put simply, Obama’s Libya strategy is designed to avoid the most undesirable outcomes rather than optimize the chances of a desired outcome, to do something without “owning” the conflict, to maintain maximum flexibility as the situation evolves, and to do all of this in the face of powerful constraints. The question is whether this strategy can actually work.

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The End of Compassion

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New Republic - By Jonathan Cohn - Apr. 01 (Opinion) - House Republicans want to cut funding for health programs abroad and for community clinics here at home. And although the projected savings are small, at least relative to the size of the federal budget, the philosophical shift they signal is big. This is the end of compassionate conservatism.

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Paul Ryan And The Republicans Prepare To Go After Medicaid.

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 14:12:27 -0700

New Republic - Apr. 01 -

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Republicans Want FDA Funding Back At 2008 Levels--when Spinach, Peanut Butter, And Tomato Outbreaks Sickened The Country

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New Republic - By Jonathan Cohn - Mar. 14 (News Report) - Remember the salmonella-infected tomatoes of 2008? How about the tainted peanut butter of 2007? Or the bad spinach of 2006? These outbreaks sickened thousands and cost the produce industry hundreds of millions. Yet somehow the Republican Party has forgotten about them.

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Scott Walker's Real Motive

Sun, 27 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New Republic - By Jonathan Chait - Feb. 27 (News Analysis) - "We are never going to win most of these states until we can do something about those unions,"

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The GOP's New Angle in the Climate-Change Debate? Just Ignore It. - New Republic

Wed, 09 Feb 2011 23:03:45 -0800

New Republic - Feb. 09 - New RepublicThe GOP's New Angle in the Climate-Change Debate? Just Ignore It.New RepublicInstead, he was content simply to say, “There's nothing conclusive in the science,” and that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had been ...Inhofe, EPA administrator tackle greenhouse gas regulationTulsa WorldOklahoma US Sen. Jim Inhofe promotes global warming skepticism and his book at ...NewsOK.comRep. Steve Scalise leads GOP attack on global warming regsNOLA.comDaily Callerall 7 news articles »

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Is The EPA Ignoring Congress With Its Climate Rules?

Tue, 28 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0800

New Republic - By Bradford Plumer - Dec. 28 (Opinion) - Last week, shortly before Christmas, the EPA posted a quick item on its website announcing a timetable for new climate regulations on power plants and petroleum refineries. This, in turn, provoked all sorts of outrage and confusion. Industry lobbyists blasted the move. James Inhofe predicted Armageddon and pledged to do whatever it took to thwart the agency. And some commenters framed this as a fresh power grab by the Obama administration. What was harder to find, though, was an explanation of what the EPA was actually doing.

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Is The Lame Duck Justifiable?

Thu, 23 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0800

New Republic - By Jonathan Chait - Dec. 23 (Opinion) - I strongly approve of the ends of the lame duck Congress, but as a small-d democrat, I don't approve of the means. Why should Congress have a period of time to act in which many members enjoy zero accountability before their constituents? The arrangement is ripe for abuse.

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