A Month of Talks

March is shaping up to include an unusual number of talks for me. Last weekend I took part in ISI’s “God and Man at CPAC” panel. Video exists and should eventually be up at ISI’s website. Next Friday I’ll be commenting on the security and foreign policy panel at the Austrian Scholars Conference in Auburn, [...]

Scripting McCain vs. Obama

Over at Culture11, Patrick Deneen, Jamie Kirchick, and I discuss what the candidates ought to say if tonight’s debate goes ahead.
I’ll be watching Bob Barr react in real time to the candidates’ clash (again, assuming it happens) at Reason’s debate-watch party.

Vacation Is a Time to Blog

TAC began its summer break yesterday, after sending to print the new issue (Leon Hadar has the cover story, on the failure of nation-building in Afghanistan). While the other editors have had the good sense to disperse far and wide — with literary editor Freddy Gray getting as far as Rwanda — I’ll be lurking [...]

Naomi Wolf at the Ron Paul Revolution Rally

I’ve blogged some of my general impressions of the rally, which was yesterday, here. I heard a 6,000-attendee estimate from a couple of sources, though Kelley Vlahos may be right in thinking it was fewer. (I don’t really know what 6,000 or 2,500 people would look like.) In any case, it was a great [...]

Menckeniana This Fall

In September, Dissident Books is bringing out a new edition of Mencken’s classic Notes on Democracy:
H. L. Mencken, America’s greatest journalist and critic, wrote Notes on Democracy more than eighty years ago. His era—the years of World War I, Prohibition, and the Scopes trial—was strikingly like our own. Notes isn’t just a provocative and funny [...]

The Best Democrat Since Grover Cleveland?

Maybe. I don’t agree with Bob Conley on trade, but he’s antiwar, pro-life, anti-neocon, anti-Patriot Act, and to the right of just about any Democrat you can think of since Larry McDonald. The South Carolina Senate nominee is having a fundraiser in the D.C. area on Saturday — 12:30-3:30 pm in McLean, Virginia. ($50 suggested [...]

Antiwar Conservatism Comes to Cato

Bill Kauffman’s event yesterday was great fun — a provocative talk from Bill, a friendly rejoinder from Michael Tomasky, and about 20 minutes of audience Q+A, plus a reception afterwards. Catch up if you missed it by listening to the MP3 or watching the RealVideo.
About three-quarters of the TAC office trekked down to the event, [...]

Ron Paul vs. the Kochtopus

In a friendly game of softball, that is: the Ron Paul campaign team is facing off against the Koch team in the D.C. Think Tank Softball League. Both teams are in the “Free Soil” division.
What’s a Kochtopus, you ask? David Gordon answers.

Antiwar Conservatism vs. Beltway Libertarianism

Mark your calendars: on May 8, Bill Kauffman will be debating Michael Tomasky (editor of the U.S. edition of the lefty Brit newspaper The Guardian) at the Cato Institute. Tomasky reviewed Kauffman’s book here. Orange Line liberventionist Tyler Cowen discusses the book here.
There actually are a number of anti-interventionist libertarians in the D.C. area, and [...]

If You’re In the D.C. Area, Drop by the Taft Club Tonight

The Robert Taft Club is hosting a panel discussion tonight on the society, politics, and the biological sciences with Charles Murray (co-author of The Bell Curve), Tom Bethell (author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science and a senior editor of the American Spectator), John Derbyshire (of National Review), Ron Bailey (Reason’s science correspondent).
The event [...]