Hans Noel

As the Supreme Court begins hearing oral arguments on Prop 8 and DOMA in the shadow of a remarkable shift in public opinion in favor of marriage equality, a number of conservatives have noted that if the Court decides in favor of gay rights, this could set back the movement by sparking a backlash. Perhaps, […]

Raise your hand if you think the American political system is healthy. I thought so. Once again, there is an effort to defund political science, this time from Sen. Tom Coburn. Sen. Coburn’s letter to the head of the NSF on behalf of that effort says the following: “Studies of presidential executive power and Americans’ attitudes […]

Greg Koger’s excellent post on the Hastert “guideline” raises a point of disagreement among parties scholars. One that we should make explicit. Greg goes to great lengths to say that “policy outcomes are secondary to the true goals of political parties”– winning elections. Greg’s position is also taken by Anthony Downs, John Aldrich and others. […]

How would you characterize the folks who oppose the U.S. drone program? If you didn’t know it already, after 11-plus hours of Sen. Rand Paul’s filibuster, you now know you’d have to say libertarian conservatives, worried about an unaccountable Obama. And yet you’d also have to say anti-war liberals and other progressives, also worried about an […]

Matt Yglesias asks me what I think about any likely partisan division over copyright reform. The claim, made by Joe Karaganis at NRO (semi-gated) and echoed by Jerry Brito, is that the Republicans could be leading the fight for copyright reform because even though both parties have constituencies on both sides, the conservative pro-reform position […]

Since the tragic shooting in Newtown, we’ve heard a lot of policy proposals. We’ve also heard from people saying we should just slow down and not have a policy discussion while the nation is grieving. I don’t know what the right way to grieve is, but I do know that those saying we should slow down […]

Tomorrow is Election Day. I have three last minute messages for you. First, vote. If you haven’t voted already, go vote. It’s probably not rational, but how many of the things that you do really are? Second, vote for a major party candidate. Vote for the Democrat or vote for the Republican. Don’t vote for […]

In the wake of a series of satirical articles being mistaken for the real news, President Obama took steps today to regulate the satire industry. House Republicans immediately painted the move as socialism that would cripple job creators. The White House announced the Let America Understand Genuine Humor Act, which will require, among other things, […]

This week, Michael Charney, a moderate Republican, floated the idea that Romney’s attitude toward the 47% who pay no federal income tax perhaps indicates that the Republican nominee is not up to the task of running the country. And so Charney now says he is rethinking his vote in 2012: Just to be clear: That […]