Slate Articles

Trent Franks Feels Your Pain

David Weigel — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 01:17:08 GMT

It’s the day of the vote for one of the biggest bills of his career, and Arizona Rep. Trent Franks has been sidelined. The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (no easy acronym), which had been a pipe dream in the last Congress, was coming to the floor and expected to pass. The trial of Philadelphia’s illegal-late-term abortionist Kermit Gosnell, and the attendant gross-out media attention, powered the bill out of committee. So, typically, the bill’s author would lead the debate on his product.

The Second-Term Slump

John Dickerson — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 23:05:20 GMT

Barack Obama's poll numbers are sliding. Around Christmastime, his average approval rating, according to RealClearPolitics, was nearly 54 percent, 12 points higher than his average disapproval rating of 42 percent. Now his numbers have flipped. His average approval rating at 46.6 percent is roughly 2 points lower than his disapproval rating at 48.3 percent. If these numbers hold, President Obama is never going to get re-elected.

The Whitey Bulger Trial

Seth Stevenson — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:53:17 GMT

Boston tough guy John Martorano gets back on the stand this morning. I think all 20 of Martorano’s confessed murders have been covered in detail by the end of direct questioning. It’s possible we glossed over a few. The prosecution wraps up by asking him, “Do you regret your life of crime?”

Drop the Taper Talk

Matthew Yglesias — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:17:02 GMT

Investors will be sitting on the edge of their seats Wednesday at 2 p.m. to hear the latest pronouncement from the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee. FOMC releases are always highly anticipated, but this one more than most. And the word on everyone’s lips on Wall Street all morning will be “taper”—which has become Fed-speak for reducing the FOMC’s current pace of $85 billion worth of bond purchases per month. The question is: Will the tapering begin this month, or will it be delayed? And if it is delayed, what kind of hint will the FOMC give as to when the tapering will begin?

Give Us Now Our Daily Croissant

Carl Wilson — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 21:28:00 GMT

Where is your Kanye limit, the temperature level at which fascination boils over into exasperation? That’s an issue with any Kanye West album, but perhaps especially with the new Yeezus, which was officially released Tuesday but leaked on Friday, flooding the Internet with comments from all sides. For people who can’t stand his public image (and, of course, for Taylor Swift fans), the limit is zero. Others stop with the singles—hooky, less ranty, they yield the most pleasure with the least strain on patience. But that safe option mutes the very Kanyeness of Kanye; for the whole light show, you have to brave the albums.

Getting in Bed With Europe

Matthew Yglesias — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 20:21:22 GMT

You may not be interested in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), but TTIP is interested in you. And you may not recall the moment in Barack Obama’s State of the Union address when he called for a free trade pact with the European Union, but policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic have continued to grind forward with the process. Last Friday, the European Union’s trade ministers delivered an official mandate to the European Commission to begin negotiating an agreement.

Beware the Lone-Wolf Terrorist

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:49:50 GMT

The killing of Osama Bin Laden and the systematic elimination of numerous senior al-Qaida operatives during the past 12 years have undoubtedly reduced the risk of terrorism. But the bombing at the Boston Marathon in April reminds us that there are so-called “lone wolf” threats out there that are extremely difficult to track, even within U.S. borders.

Can You Inhale Calories?

Brian Palmer — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:45:06 GMT

Public health officials worldwide are warning young people off the new trend of “smoking alcohol.” The user either pours hard liquor over dry ice or heats it, then inhales the vaporized alcohol. Some believe the process affords the inhaler a high without the calories of alcohol, but experts say there are still calories involved. Can you really inhale calories?

Clarence Thomas, Liberal

Mark Joseph Stern — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:23:39 GMT

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is frequently accused of being a partisan hack, a conservative lackey serving only the interests of the Republican Party. His votes are often portrayed as products of political ideology rather than constitutional philosophy, a practice he only encourages with his forays into political commentary. But as his recent opinions in Alleyne v. United States and the Myriad gene-patenting case illustrate, Thomas is much more than a Tea Party mouthpiece. That his views skew conservative is a product not of partisanship but rather of his deep, occasionally confounding dedication to originalist theory. And sometimes that dedication leads this already idiosyncratic justice to cast votes that would please Earl Warren.

Mad Men, Season 6

Paul Ford — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 17:02:00 GMT

Seth, Hanna,