Michael Sean Winters

Forty days and forty nights is a period of time rich in religious imagery It is also sadly the measure to-date of the ecological disaster occurring off the coast of Louisiana Today I hope the prayers of all Americans are focused on the efforts deep in the Gulf of Mexico to stop the flow of oil

It appears that Congress and the White House are close to a compromise that will end the Don rsquo t Ask Don rsquo t Tell DADT policy that forbids openly gay men and women from serving in the U S armed forces The compromise will allow the Pentagon to complete its study of the issue but will

Give praise where praise is due I am a frequent critic of Professor Robert George founder of the American Principles Project but in a recent post at Mirror of Justice Professor George is doing the work of the angels by challenging conservatives to be wary of libertarianism George refers to an a

Life would be so much less interesting if Professor Robert George was not around He has replied to my post yesterday with a post of his own over at Mirror of Justice Among other things he accuses me of an ad hominem attack when I wrote that the tone of his first post was condescending and that con

Professor Rick Garnett is a professor of law and I am not so I do not disagree with him lightly on matters of the law He is also very smart so I do not disagree lightly with him on anything At his blog Mirror of Justice he takes issue with my immediate reaction to the recent Supreme Court de

Rachel Maddow cornered Rand Paul on the subject of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the strangest thing happened He turned into a politician before our very eyes This champion of the truth-telling Tea Partiers waffled and dodged like the most seasoned of pols You half expected him to say ldquo

Sometimes in politics the only pattern is that there is no pattern Last night rsquo s primaries yielded an amazingly diverse set of conclusions from the insta-pundits way too much of it focused on inside-the-Beltway considerations I love Andrea Mitchell but her report from Philly focused almost

Pope Benedict rsquo s speeches in Portugal were all very fine and worthy of consideration but I wish to call attention to one speech in particular his address on culture in Bel eacute m Normally we try and lift a couple lines from a long quote but I want to call attention to the final paragraph

Normally I do not give a second thought to the rantings of Glenn Beck I have always assumed that the man is an Elmer Gantry-like ranter essentially an actor who could not possibly believe what he says because no intelligent person could believe what he says But he spoke to the National Rifle A

I listened to some of the congressional testimony by Attorney General Eric Holder yesterday I had to switch the radio because of the badgering idiocy of some of the questioning One Republican congressman kept trying to get Holder to blame radical Islam for terrorism which Holder understandably