At Lawfare, Ben Wittes posts photos and maps that show why the issue of Jerusalem's status in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations is so nettlesome from a strategic point of view.
Becca Rothfeld, at the New Statesmen, on the demise of The New Republic. Be sure to read the penultimate paragraph, which brings to mind Gloria Upson in "Auntie Mame" saying, "Books are awfully decorative, don't you think." (Video below) Of course, that character was a spoof of a kind of bigoted snob in the 1950s. Chris Hughes? What is your excuse?
Our friends at Center for American Progress do some good work, but they also unwittingly display their own biases in ways that would be comic if not so sad. They posted this item yesterday about GOP support for the First Amendment Defense Act, in which this paragraph shows how their ideology distorts their vision:
Barrosse neglected to point out that every time Catholic Charities faced this conflict, it was because the organization believed it was entitled to continue receiving state funding while discriminating against couples the state recognized as married. In each case that Catholic Charities shut down adoption services, it was a voluntary decision made because it refused to operate without state funding.
You see the problem? Voluntary is made to carry way too much water in the paragraph, to the point of being Orwellian. We can disagree about the merits of the proposed Act without manipulating the facts.
Here is the video of Gloria Upson on books as decoration:
