The New Republic

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Last week, the White House released a list of recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor that the United States government can afford a civilian. Among the 16 awardees are truly great figures: breast cancer philanthropist Nancy Goodman Brinker, theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, and Sidney Poitier, the first African-American to win an Academy Award for Best Actor. READ MORE >>

Must hate the Federal Reserve, neocons and the Trilateral Commission. Having your own tin foil hat a plus. Seeking strong man to envelop me in his protective arms once the coming race war erupts. No limp-wrists. READ MORE >>

Some post-July 4th fireworks were on display at a Senate Environmental and Public Works Commitee hearing last week, chaired by Barbara Boxer. You could be forgiven for missing them, as they flew during the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings. But the incident was equal parts comical and pathetic, and telling for what it says about the state of today's conservative movement. READ MORE >>

The afternoon before the White House Correspondents Dinner, I sat down with Meghan McCain, daughter of the erstwhile presidential candidate, to profile her for OUT magazine. McCain has earned herself a remarkable bit of controversy in the relatively short period of time that she's emerged as a pundit, picking fights with the likes of Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh, Karl Rove and...well, a huge chunk of the Republican Party. Here's what she had to say about Joe the Plumber: READ MORE >>

Writing at Tablet,  Michael Weiss dispels forecasts of an imminent Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear targets, an assumption that was given greater weight by Joe Biden's recent remarks that seemed to give Jerusalem a green light should it feel the time is right. READ MORE >>

"all ready to read Todd Purdum's absurd puff piece on Sarah Palin." -- Andrew Sullivan, June 30, 2009, 4:18 PM "Purdum's...superb summary of the Wasilla whack-job." -- Andrew Sullivan, June 30, 2009, 5:06 PM  (h/t Michael Moynihan) READ MORE >>

The radical journalist I.F. Stone hasn't received much respect in these parts, due to his covert work on behalf of the Soviet Union in the 1930's (work which Stone's defenders refuse to acknowledge as at all morally compromising, preferring to see it as the laudable aiding of a wartime ally). But as TNR senior editor Adam Kirsch shows in a review of D.D. READ MORE >>

I'll have more to say about the administration's lackluster response (if one can even call it that) to the ongoing events in Iran, but this sentence from today's New York Times story about Vice President Biden's announcement that the White House will "engage" Iran regardless of how many pro-democracy protestors it kills or ballots it stuffs stuck out at me:  READ MORE >>

As if being the prime minister of Zimbabwe--a nation wracked by economic devastation, starvation, and political oppression for the past decade--was not a difficult enough job, Morgan Tsvangirai must also share power with President Robert Mugabe. READ MORE >>