The New Republic

Exciting news from inside TNR: We just got Gary Gensler, chairman of the CFTC, to join our roster of dignitaries and pacemakers for our event on the current state of the economy. Gensler will tangle with Barney Frank, Eliot Spitzer, Christina Romer, Andrew Cuomo, Bill Ackman, David Wessel, and others on some of the most important questions facing the nation: How have we handled the financial collapse thus far? What could have we done better, and what can we do better still? READ MORE >>

Facing humungous challenges to passing strong health care reform this year, Democrats are starting to talk up the idea of reconciliation again. Republicans--shock--don’t like the idea. This March, Senator Judd Gregg compared reconciliation with “running over the minority, putting them in cement, and throwing them in the Chicago River.” But is the Senate process really that brutal? READ MORE >>

Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen, via Joe Klein: "Last week I spoke to a couple of Army Rangers who had just engaged the enemy. They said it was like fighting the Marines. The Taliban were well trained, better organized, much tougher fighters than they'd been in the past." READ MORE >>

Charles Krauthammer today predicts that the Democrats will soon abandon the whole idea of using health care reform to “bend the curve” toward less explosive cost growth. He predicts they will: READ MORE >>

Recent reports have indicated that the way U.S. and Israel might be able to reach agreement on settlement freeze is by excluding East Jerusalem in such a freeze, among other things. But it's not clear whether that will fly: Egypt's foreign minister says East Jerusalem must be included in a freeze of Israeli settlement activity before Middle East peace talks can restart. READ MORE >>

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I've fallen victim to one of the classic blunders, right after never going in against a Sicilian when death is on the line, which is: don't get into an argument with a libertarian about anything, really, but especially about guns. But, alas I have, so I'll go one more round on this with Megan McArdle (and her tag-team partner Will Wilkinson) and then I promise I'll be done. McArdle writes: READ MORE >>

Saudi Arabia's chief counterterrorism official has narrowly survived a suicide attack -- an event significant for two reasons. First, it underscores that the Saudi royals are still in a very dangerous battle with al Qaeda, which would love to overthrow their regime. The good news is that the Saudis have had success in fighting domestic al Qaeda militants over the past few years, something Obama officials praise the Saudis for. READ MORE >>

This morning's lede story in The New York Times about the divisions between Leon Panetta's C.I.A. and Eric Holder's Justice Department has a couple of interesting nuggets. Now that Justice is going to be conducting an investigation into detainee abuse, Langley is angry. Rahm Emanuel, when asked by the Times, said of the dispute: READ MORE >>

Welcome, dear readers, to the revamped TNR.com. We understand that reinvention is part of the very fabric of the internet, and so an overhaul like this is not usually regarded as an event of the same magnitude as, say, an old-fashioned print magazine relaunch. But this new site is a very big deal for us.  READ MORE >>