I was charmed and fascinated to see Hans Kung, Pope Benedict’s one-time collaborator during Vatican II and later his nemesis (or vice versa), jumping in to critique Benedict’s transition out of the papacy.
Swiss theologian Hans Kueng, Benedict’s one-time colleague-turned-critic, went further: “With Benedict XVI, there is a risk of a shadow pope who has abdicated but can still indirectly exert influence,” he told Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine last week.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said Tuesday that Benedict himself decided on his name and wardrobe in consultation with others, settling on “Your Holiness Benedict XVI” and either “emeritus pope” or “emeritus Roman pontiff.”
Republicans charge that Obama is releasing ‘criminal’ immigrants as sequester propaganda.
Voting underway. Basically a foregone conclusion now. But the final number will be interesting.
Late Update: Hagel now has more than 50 votes. But the vote continues, no final number yet.
Approaching thermonuclear apostasy, Chris Christie agrees to accept Medicaid expansion under the dreaded O-B-A-M-A-C-A-R-E.
Israelis to press Obama to release convicted spy Jonathan Pollard during the President’s spring visit.
Still really amazing to me how rapidly marriage equality went from lethal wedge issue to majority opinion.
About 72 hours from the sequestration order, we’re approaching the “well, now what?” chapter in this particular fight where the big Obama cave conservatives are hoping for doesn’t happen. After that, it’s my suspicion that reality will begin to set in and pressure will build on Republicans to compromise.
I’ll get to my theory of a GOP cave in a minute, but I want to emphasize, contra Matt Yglesias, that its mechanics don’t really depend on the superiority of the Democrats’ message per se. Read More
We can argue over who is responsible for the sequester — though between two co-equal branches of government, who passed and signed the legislation, the point of that seems limited. But that doesn’t take away from the clarifying moment we’re witnessing, the scale of which we likely haven’t seen since the government shutdowns of the mid-90s. Republicans have run on big across-the-board spending cuts for literally decades. Read More
World Wrestling Entertainment is in a public feud with Glenn Beck. (Remember him?)