Pete Spiliakos

1.  This Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry post did not get enough attention when it came out.  It has lots of good stuff.  One especially important observation: the GOP’s lack of a middle-class agenda makes it easier for their opponents to portray them as the party of white identity . . . . Continue Reading »

One thing (though far from the only thing) that makes me look forward to Peter Lawler posts is that they often help crystallize my thoughts. Peter writes about talking to the New Atlantis guys about assimilation, but I’m not so worried about assimilation per se. As a general rule, America is . . . . Continue Reading »

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued a news release in support of the Gang of Eight’s immigration proposal. The problem is that the Gang of Eight proposal fails by the standards enunciated by the bishops and for other reasons too. At a press conference, Archbishop Gomez said: “Each day in our parishes, social service programs, hospitals, and schools we witness the human consequences of a broken immigration system… . Continue Reading »

You can produce an immigration policy that is all three.  I have some thoughts about it over at National Review Online . . . . . Continue Reading »

Rubio is now willing to occasionally admit that his Gang of Eight immigration plan provides for amnesty first and border security and internal enforcement either later or never.   Meanwhile, a Rubio advisor has been caught arguing for a larger low-skill guest worker program despite double . . . . Continue Reading »

Scott Galupo is right about Santorum’s speech. I was remiss not to link to it over the weekend. Good for Santorum for saying: One after another, they talked about the business they had built. But not a single—not a single —factory worker went out there . . . Not a single janitor, . . . . Continue Reading »

Don’t believe the professional movie critics. Just as Superman Returns has seen its reputation (deservedly) decline since it came out, Man of Steel is likely to see its critical reputation improve in the years ahead. The most puzzling critique of Man of Steel is that it lacks the . . . . Continue Reading »

I don’t think it is an especially good idea. . . . . Continue Reading »

Romney’s infamous 47 percent comment did not come from nowhere, but neither did it come from Romney’s personal idiosyncrasies. There was the Wall Street Journal’s “lucky duckies” editorial about lower middle-class families who had little or no income tax liability. There was Ari Fleischer’s column complaining that workers just below the median did not pay enough in taxes… . Continue Reading »

Okay, maybe not lose, so much as lose by huge margins. I think that Republicans would have trouble winning a plurality of the youth vote even if they did everything right, but losing the youth vote by twenty-three points at a time of elevated youth unemployment is just brutal. The College . . . . Continue Reading »