Author: Andrew Sullivan

PPP points to Palin’s general election weak spot:

[A] lot of the Republicans who don’t like [Palin]- in contrast to the Republicans who don’t like Huckabee, Gingrich, or Romney- aren’t willing to hold their nose and vote for her in the general election. Across the 7 individual states where we’ve done 2012 polls so far- Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Montana, and Virginia- Palin averages receiving 77% of the Republican vote against Barack Obama. That puts her slightly behind Gingrich at 80% and well behind Romney and Huckabee at 84%.

Amanda Marcotte doesn't understand:

Sure, marriage chauvinists can point to things such as marriage's impact on health and well-being, and to the fact that married men are less anti-social. I'm skeptical, though, because these kinds of studies lump all nonmarried people into one group.  People who are in long term, committed relationships without that piece of paper are put in the same group as people who've never held a relationship together.  I want to see apples to apples comparisons.  How do unmarried people who've been together for five or 10 years hold up next to people who have been together that long but tied the knot in their first year or two together? That people are giving up on marriage doesn't mean they've given up on love or commitment.  In fact, many of us believe our commitments are made stronger by the fact that they are only to each other and not to an institution.

Douthat ponders the abortion divide:

[T]he country still divides pretty cleanly along educational lines, with high school dropouts strongly opposed to abortion-on-demand, college graduates tilting in its favor, and high school graduates somewhere in between. And surprisingly, that divide hasn’t really changed since the 1970s, despite the changes on other issues, and the shifting pattern of religious practice.

This suggests that — well, I’m not exactly sure what it suggests, beyond the obvious point that reality can make mincemeat of any pundit’s neat schematic. But it made me think about the way abortion, because it’s so high profile and politicized, may have become much more of an identity-politics totem than, say, issues like divorce and premarital sex, or even personal habits like churchgoing. In other words, it may be that calling yourself pro-choice has become one of the the ways of identifying yourself with the educated class, even if your views on other subjects have shifted, subtly or starkly, in a more traditionalist direction. And likewise, calling yourself pro-life has become one of the ways of identifying as a morally-upright conservative middle American, even if you don’t go to church and don’t really hew to conservative ethics on almost any other front.

 

According to Brian Beutler, who updates us on Sen. Susan Collins' negotiations with Reid. More details here. David Kurtz's reading of the situation:

Collins has finally made her demands concrete and public. And they are not outrageous. At one point she wanted or was said to want two weeks of debate. Now she's asking for a manageable 4 days. Would we have gotten here anyway? Maybe. Did Reid's forcing the issue make the difference? Hard to say for sure, but probably.

This much is clear: the day started with DADT repeal looking completely dead and ends with a very plausible way forward to 60 votes in the Senate in this lame duck session. Not a done deal yet, but prospects for repeal are a whole lot better than they were 12 hours ago.

Greg Sargent reports that Sen. Lisa Murkowski has come out for repeal of DADT, with conditions. The president is also weighing in with Senators. For the first time, I feel confident this will pass. If it does, this lame duck session will have been quite something. But we're not there yet.

(Photo: Karen Bleier/Getty.)

A reader writes:

As a high school and community college teacher of sixteen years, I can assure Mr. Joyner that it is absolutely getting harder for more and more sixteen year olds to stay a year or two more to finish.  I teach in a college town in the midwest where education is valued on the whole.  Yet, more and more of my students from lower income homes are either the sole economic provider for the home or are a major contributor to the economic stability/instability of the home.  They work countless hours through the week.  Their classwork and homework suffers.  They sleep in class.  They find "traditional" coursework boring compared to the immediate needs and demands of a weak economy, their economic lot in life, and a lack of effective and efficient alternate means to complete a diploma.

Another reader:

Does Joyner realize that most students that drop out are years behind in school by the time they drop out?  People do not drop out because they are being intentionally irresponsible (well most of them) they drop out because they cannot read.  And most of the time their problems start before they are 10.  So Joyner is willing to condemn a whole group of people as irresponsible for schooling issues they had when they were 10 or younger?  Certainly by the time you are 16 or 17 you should take some responsibility for your decisions.  But the problem is that those students that are making irresponsible decisions at 16 or 17 are making the decisions based on their inadequate (to that point) education.  Students that are on grade level virtually never drop out.

Nicholas Jackson attends a talk by data analyst Hans Rosling:

Two billion of the world's seven billion people live on less than $2 a day, below the poverty line, Rosling said. And only one billion live above the "Air line," the term Rosling uses for those who spend more than $80 a day and whose lives are filled with gadgets, including airplanes. But how many live above the "Wash line?" Rosling asked. How many of the world's seven billion have access to a washing machine? Only two billion. These people live on $40 a day or more. Everyone else — about five billion people around the world — still washes their clothes by hand.

Of course, women are often the ones who are doing the washing of clothes. And they spend hours every week performing this grueling task that we often take for granted. Hours that could be better spent elsewhere.

Students demonstrate through Birmingham City centre against government education tuition fee plans on December 8, 2010 in Birmingham, United Kingdom. Students and supporters demonstrated in the city ahead of the parliamentary vote on tuition fees tomorrow. Thousands of students are planning to protest in London tomorrow as the government votes on a plan to raise tuition fees in England. By Christopher Furlong/Getty Images.

A reader writes:

I’m sure Nate Silver is right that that “See, this is proof that lower taxes work” may be the Republican line, but consider this: the only significant change to current tax policy is the proposed payroll tax cut—and that only applies to only the first $107,000 of income. So if the argument is that this deal was the right stimulus, it is an argument for cutting middle and working class taxes, not those of the top 2%.

Of course, for that to mean anything would require that rational argument mean something in American politics. And Obama effectively conceded yesterday that it does not. He won this argument on the merits, and lost it on the politics. That’s why I suspect his confidence in winning the politics in two years is misplaced—he’ll win on the merits again, and lose on the politics again.

I'm not so cynical about the intelligence of the American voter.

E.D. Kain does it with pointed questions:

If the publisher of a small website dedicated to the dissemination of the state-secrets of the Chinese government were operating their publishing outfit out of the United States and published a bunch of leaked Chinese state secrets (both on their website and through various larger media organizations) and the Chinese government declared that a violation of Chinese law, should the US government arrest and detain and possibly extradite that person to China?

Let’s assume for a moment that this person is a United States citizen. Is he guilty of treason against China? Let’s assume he is Canadian. Would it be reasonable to say this person was violating Chinese law and should be tried and possibly executed in China? Does Chinese law trump civil rights and civil liberties for non-Chinese citizens? Do China’s legitimate security concerns outweigh the civil liberties of non-Chinese citizens? Of American citizens?

Marty Beckerman reviews an innovative new undergarment:

The sacfree press release promised:

"The world-wide first testicle-free men's underwear — a fantastic, comfortable, free feeling and a new sexy look. … And so it works: sacfree® protects and supports the penis in a bag-like pouch. Till here sacfree® feels like a classic slip. For the testicle sacfree® offers pure space. Through an opening the sac can hangs out completely free. … With its open kind sacfree® makes for a fresh breeze. A comfortable and manly healthy characteristic… [A]bove all, people who works vocationally much in sitting will appreciate the new sacfree® freedom." …

So back in our bedroom after dinner, I removed my shirt. "Oooooooh," she cooed. I unfastened my belt. "Mmmmmmm," she purred. I  dropped my drawers.

"Your … your balls …?" she gawked at my crotchless boxers with a combination of bafflement and horror.

"Yes," I nodded confidently. "My balls."

She reached for the TV remote instead of my (semi-concealed, semi-showcased) male anatomy. "Put your pants back on," she instructed. "Those look ridiculous."