Even acknowledging that our national politics have become increasingly contentious, here’s a development that is really odd: two billionaire brothers are spending millions of dollars to try to persuade young Americans not to buy health insurance. What’s up with that? The industrialist Koch brothers, David and Charles, are among the very richest Americans — indeed,…
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Last week’s horror at the Washington Navy Yard barely interrupted the stale political chatter, the dueling poll-tested messages, the sensational reports on the latest celebrity divorce or stint in rehab. While the newest mass shooting did preoccupy reporters for a couple of days, its import — at least judged in headlines and cable…
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For decades now, the Republican Party has been honing its reputation for hostility toward the downtrodden, the poor, the disadvantaged. While a few of its leaders have tried to either shed that image or to dress it up with a more appealing façade — think George W. Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” — lately, the GOP has…
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To listen to Donald Rumsfeld chastise President Obama over Syria is to listen to a man stunning in his chutzpah and pathological in his arrogance. He has never taken responsibility for the disastrous invasion of Iraq, nor has he ever acknowledged its horrors. Last week, Rumsfeld told CNN that, while the Iraq war “unquestionably has…
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