The New Republic

On Tuesday, Mother Jones reporter David Corn released audio of Senator Mitch McConnell and his reelection campaign staff yukking it up over the various zany quotes and writings of Ashley Judd, who was considering a run against McConnell at the time. READ MORE >>

Want to know whether bipartisan compromise on the budget has a future? Then watch very clearly over the next few days, to see whether Republican leaders distance themselves from Republican Congressman Greg Walden—and whether Walden himself walks back some rhetoric from yesterday. READ MORE >>

President Obama’s proposed budget for FY 2014 represents an important contribution to a desperately needed national discussion about our long-term fiscal future. As such, it deserves a careful examination—not the reflexive chorus of cheers and boos (mostly the latter) that it has received so far. READ MORE >>

I’m for the strictest gun control—the kind in Great Britain that bans hand guns and automatic and semi-automatic weapons. That kind of gun control would seriously limit armed violence in the United States. READ MORE >>

Last Thursday, a few young writers who help edit and contribute to Dissent tweeted pictures from a strike in Harlem, part of a citywide effort to get fast-food franchises to pay employees $15 an hour. READ MORE >>

It wasn't so long ago that Harry Reid and Wayne LaPierre, the National Rifle Association CEO, looked like a wizened, cordial couple as they celebrated the grand opening of a Las Vegas shooting range—the summer of 2009, in fact. But just a year later the NRA, despite its "B" rating of the Senate majority leader, declined to endorse him in a hard-fought race against Republican Sharron Angle. READ MORE >>

The future of the GOP has been up for debate since its defeat in last November’s elections, and for the most part the question has been not if, but how Republicans should change. More recently, though, well-respected analysts are debating whether the GOP really needs to change at all. READ MORE >>

Why do judges do what they do? It is easy to identify two different answers. The first emphasizes the law. The second emphasizes politics. READ MORE >>

Dietary supplements. A wedding caterer charged with embezzlement. Disputes about who’s picking up the bill. The makings of another downscale-America reality show? Nope. Rather, the features of an increasingly murky drama involving a man who not long ago at all was being considered a serious prospect for a Republican presidential ticket: Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell. READ MORE >>

For all the talk of AR-15s and high-capacity magazines since the Newtown shootings, you’d think from watching the gun-control debate in Washington that the scariest weapons in the land are the humble telephone and e-mail. Every day seems to bring another report of a senator or congressman who was inclined to support serious gun-control legislation but then had second thoughts after nothing more than a deluge of ding-a-lings and inbox pings. It’s almost as if these poor fellows had never been the target of a concerted special-interest push before. READ MORE >>