Remembering Molly—We know that a great many of you first subscribed to the Spectatorbased on the recommendation of Molly Ivins, the iconic liberal columnist and humorist who, as you no doubt know, died on January 31 after a long fight with cancer. Molly got to know our longtime editor Ben A. Franklin back in the days […]

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After three dreadful election cycles—each, it seems, worse than the one before—progressives have made serious gains. The statistics are great: Six U.S. Senate seats. Twenty-nine U.S. Representatives. Six governors. Nine legislative chambers. More than three hundred state legislators. Final tallies are still being crunched, but it looks as though Democrats picked up everywhere from federal […]

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Editor’s note: President Bush never misses an opportunity to tout the economic growth and job gains of the last few years. The Dow may be at record highs, but there’s an ugly truth behind the myth of today’s economic “good times.” We asked occasional contributor Perry L. Weed to tease out the real story from […]

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Compromised Principles—When is a compromise not a compromise? When one side gets almost everything it wants and the other is left high and dry. That’s what happened in the recent debate over the Bush administration’s “anti-terrorism” interrogation powers. On one side were a trio of Republican senators led by John McCain (R-AZ), who was in […]

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In the 1980s Chevrolet proclaimed itself the “Heartbeat of America.” Today, many would say that the American auto industry barely has a pulse. Last November, General Motors (owner of the Chevy brand) announced that it was cutting 25,000 jobs and closing up to 12 factories by 2008. The news came one month after auto-parts giant […]

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