Tag Archives: the united states

Telling The Truth About The United States Is Hard

What makes the United States the greatest country in the world? I dunno. Yosemite? ___________ I like the above video’s puncturing of American exceptionalism. I especially like the Yosemite line, but when the piano starts to play, and the patriotic … Continue reading

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John Boehner: If jobs are lost “so be it.”

The Los Angeles Times reports that the Repubican Speaker of the House, John Boehner, made the following retort to job losses from recently proposed federal budget cuts: “so be it.” Here’s the Los Angeles Times: House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) dismissed concerns that the spending cuts … Continue reading

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How Likely is President Obama’s Reelection?

At the New York Times this week, Nate Silver lays out some criteria for an educated guess: I estimate that Mr. Carter’s approval rating was 31 percent, and George H.W. Bush’s was 39 percent, at the time of their respective … Continue reading

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Three Casualties of the Ground Zero Mosque: The Enlightenment, the American Constitution, and the Bill of Rights?

It has hit me forcefully this past weekend that the United States is facing a challenge to the very character of its existence: will we continue to be an Enlightenment-based Jeffersonian nation committed to treating people as individuals with universal reason and … Continue reading

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Author Tayari Jones: Hell no, she won’t go (to Arizona)

Author Tayari Jones is boycotting Arizona, a state in which she once resided. In a letter to the organizers of the Pima Summer Writers Conference in Tucson, Arizona, she explains her decision to avoid the state: Due to the passage of … Continue reading

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