Chris Hughes, who has a lot of money, has bought a "majority share" of The New Republic, which has been sitting rather sadly on the auction block, getting hotter and more spoiled, like a cube of bloody meat on a stump in a dusty town square. Who will buy this delicious, if exceedingly tiny, piece of meat that has been sitting in the sun for days now? It comes with a long and storied and difficult and often ugly history!

Hughes will! And now he has taken the title of "Editor and Publisher" of TNR, whose mindshare was stolen by The Atlantic, Talking Points Memo, and [...]

Yesterday, we looked at how taxpayer-funded USAID has been supporting evangelical organizations in Haiti, in direct violation of executive orders by both George W. Bush and Barack Obama regarding federal grants to faith-based organizations. We noted in particular how Franklin Graham—Billy Graham's son—uses federal aid to increase his personal profile and influence and, using USAID-funded Haiti clinics as scenic background for Fox News specials, has secured Sarah Palin's enthusiastic, fervent endorsement, no doubt in return for election support come 2012.

Now, proving that the left hand of the politically-active religious right doesn't know what the right hand is doing, over 160 Republicans in the House have endorsed defunding [...]

I guess in the era of AshleyMadison.com offering to name the Meadowlands' new football stadium a "viral" site mimicking a blog dedicated to giving the married advice on how to approach their "freebie" — that is, their one-night-only chance to Get Out Of Cheating-Partner Jail Free — should not surprise. And yet. There is something about the way that Untie The Knot (Tagline: "Just Another WordPress Site") blends the ineptly marketing-oriented and the semi-servicey that makes me sort of ill. Also, I suspect that a, the movie will be pretty bad, and b, it's only a matter of time before AshleyMadison makes a "content play" for the mismosh [...]