Pete Spiliakos

So I saw the science fiction movie Looper a couple of weeks ago. A lot of stuff is going on. Some of it is time travel stuff and it gets kind of complicated, but I want to focus a bit on the family dynamics. The two main male characters become mass murderers in response to losing their mothers. One . . . . Continue Reading »

I can’t quote chapter and verse, but sometime after Barry Goldwater’s defeat, William F. Buckley wrote that the political problem for conservatives was that there were not enough political conservatives. Whatever Goldwater’s flaws as a candidate, and whatever the difficulties that . . . . Continue Reading »

In an earlier post I wrote that establishment Republicans need to avoid showing contempt for the Republican primary voters whose support they need. Super commenter DJF described the Jon Huntsman presidential campaign: John Huntsman – a smart guy who did have some good, conservative ideas . . . . Continue Reading »

Scott Rasmussen writes that Republican Washington leaders are trying to find ways to prevent primary challenges - and especially the kinds of primary challenges where the insurgent winner blows winnable Senate races. Several thoughts: 1. Sometimes insurgent primary challenger are a really good . . . . Continue Reading »

Yesterday I wrote that a politics of raising taxes on lower earners and cutting taxes on higher earners was, in the minds of many of its supporters, a politics of solidarity. Low earners have a responsibility to show more solidarity with the job creating high earners by paying more taxes and . . . . Continue Reading »

Over at First Thoughts , R.R. Reno writes about inequality and solidarity. He writes (following Charles Murray) that “the rich have abandoned moral leadership, or more accurately have developed an esoteric morality for their children (“healthy choices”) while promoting moral . . . . Continue Reading »

Ross Douthat thinks they might be a thing of the past.   For all the talk of Republican intransigence, I think that Paul Ryan and Alice Rivlin could get together to craft a left/right compromise - even one that includes higher taxes than anything Ryan has proposed.  The problem is that . . . . Continue Reading »

Ramesh Ponnuru makes the case for a GOP debt limit fight about as well as it is going to be made by anyone. One way of looking at it is that refusing to unconditionally raise the debt ceiling in order to pay for already authorized spending is irresponsible. As Ponnuru points out, this assumes that . . . . Continue Reading »

1. A couple of days ago I wrote about how some younger strongly Obama-approving voters had inclinations that overlap with the center-right. I’d like to add that I don’t think any statistically significant number of these voters are going to come around to a center-right political . . . . Continue Reading »

Over at Commentary, Jonah Goldberg writes: The vernacular of conservatism derives from a time when the country was churched and defined liberty as personal sovereignty. It needs to change to engage a country that is increasingly unchurched and incorrectly thinks liberty can and should be . . . . Continue Reading »