Nancy LeTourneau

For a couple of years now, I’ve been suggesting that we take our eyes off the coasts for just a minute and focus on two states in fly-over country – Minnesota and Wisconsin. We might learn a thing or two about the results of Democratic vs Republican governance. About a year ago, Lawrence Jacobs did […]

Very shortly all eyes will be on the 114th Congress to see how they are going to respond to the bold moves from President Obama. Kevin Drum summed up their dilemma this way: GOP leaders had plans for January, but now they may or may not be able to do much about them. Instead, they’re […]

Some black academics criticized President Obama for engaging in “respectability politics” when he did things like launch the My Brother’s Keeper initiative. But when the President met with the young people involved in the Becoming a Man program in Chicago and during his visit to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Nation, he likely heard stories […]

On this shortest day of the year, here’s a powerful poem by David Whyte celebrating darkness. Happy Winter Solstice everyone! Sweet Darkness When your eyes are tired the world is tired also. When your vision has gone no part of the world can find you. Time to go into the dark where the night has […]

Speaking of Gitmo detainees, today the Obama administration announced it was releasing four more who are going back to Afghanistan. In spite of all the pearl-clutching on both the right and the left about bank bailouts, the TARP program has officially ended – leaving taxpayers with a $15.3 billion profit. It’s probably too soon to […]

One of the most fascinating parts of the negotiations between the United States and Cuba was the role Pope Francis played in both initiating the process and hosting a meeting at the Vatican. That story has been pretty well reported. Much less noticed is the fact that recently Pope Francis offered to help the Obama […]

This week Jonathan Chait reminded us of the origins of the neoconservative movement in the Republican Party. Three decades ago, right-wing French intellectual Jean-Francois Revel published a call to arms entitled “How Democracies Perish,” which quickly became a key text of the neoconservative movement and an ideological blueprint for the Reagan administration. Revel argued that […]

The media is settling on a new narrative about President Obama. It’s always interesting watching one after another join in that process. For example, Timothy Egan calls it Obama Unbound. Perhaps the best thing to happen to him [Obama] was the crushing blow his party took in the midterm elections. Come January, Republicans will have […]

I am tempted to use the word “serendipitous” to describe the fact that within a matter of days, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee released its report on the investigation of the use of torture by the Bush/Cheney administration, Brazil’s National Truth Commission released its report on the activities of its brutal military dictatorship, and President […]

As is true for many of you, I’ve been reading the Washington Monthly for years. But it wasn’t until they asked me to write here that I actually read their mission statement. Just in case any of you are like me, here it is. The Washington Monthly was founded in 1969 on the notion that […]