• New Reason.tv Drew Carey Video Debunks 'War on Middle Class' Myth
• Taking A Real Look at John McCain
• Google Goes Rent-Seeking
• Don't Trust Administration on FISA and Protect America Act
• New at Reason.com and Reason.org

New Reason.tv Drew Carey Video Debunks 'War on Middle Class' Myth
Sen. Hillary Clinton wants to "restore the middle class." Republican presidential candidates promise to ease the "burden" on the middle class. And CNN's Lou Dobbs regularly chronicles what he calls the "war on the middle class." Yet, despite all this doom and gloom about America's economy, Reason.tv's Drew Carey shows that middle class is actually better off than it ever has been. Carey, the host of The Price Is Right, says instead of simply looking at how much something costs, we should examine how many hours it takes a middle class worker to buy something. Carey points out that in the 1980s, "Few regular people could afford cell phones because the average worker had to sweat for 460 hours to buy one." Today the average worker has to put in just three hours of work to buy a cell phone. "Only the rich owned cars a century ago. But today, average Americans can afford shiny SUVs. In terms of time, the cost of a car has fallen by more than 70 percent [since 1908]," Carey explains in the Reason.tv video. "The story's the same for necessities. Food is 84 percent cheaper. Clothing is 87 percent cheaper."
» More Drew Carey Reason.tv Videos

Taking A Real Look at John McCain
"John McCain's love affair with the new news media is a decade old. But McCain: The Myth of a Maverick makes clear that love affair is over. With McCain's profile again high, Matt Welch's book becomes more relevant than ever." - Glenn Reynolds, Instapundit.com and author of An Army of Davids

"…this book excoriates John McCain as a calculating flip-flopper and the media for mythologizing him as a straight shooter. Welch compares McCain's 'ritual self-criticism' to Alcoholics Anonymous's 12-step program: First, he admits his flaws, then he sublimates them to a greater cause, and finally he takes that cause to the people. The book contains entertaining tales of equivocation aboard the Straight Talk Express, as when McCain was asked this year whether contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV and he answered: 'You've stumped me…Let me find out…I have to find out what my position was.'" - The Washington Post

In the book, Reason magazine Editor in Chief Matt Welch, who was recently labeled "one of the world's foremost experts on all things McCain" by WashingtonPost.com, writes, "The McCain desperate to be president bends his positions for political considerations, spins furiously when caught out on his contradictions, and makes absurd declarations about how none of his policy positions have changed…McCain's 34 years of voluminous on-the-record verbiage - the best-selling books, the hundreds of appearances on Sunday chat shows, the inspirational speeches - are positively cluttered with cautionary tales about what happens when he elevates his own self-interest over what's good for the country."
» Matt Welch Talks McCain on Democracy Now
» Matt Welch Talks McCain on BloggingHeads.tv

Google Goes Rent-Seeking
As Google works to block Microsoft's bid to takeover Yahoo, Reason magazine's Katherine Mangu-Ward writes that the maneuvering reveals Google's evolution: "This is what happens when you set up a Washington office. One day, you're the victim. The big, bad, established corporations are using their influence with Congress to beat up on you and stall important business deals. All you're trying to do is defend yourself from the onslaught. You bring in a lobbying team to defend your reputation and keep an eye on potential future attacks, and then, the next thing you know, you are the big, bad corporation using your influence on Congress to beat up your competitors...Google can (and does) quite fairly point at Microsoft and say 'They started it!' But moms never accept that kind of finger pointing after a playground brawl, and we shouldn't either."

Don't Trust Administration on FISA and Protect America Act
In the Washington Times, Reason magazine's Jacob Sullum writes, "The administration has contradicted itself even on the question of how urgently needed the FISA changes are. Last summer they were so crucial to national security that [Director of National Intelligence Mike] McConnell claimed pausing to debate the issue meant 'some Americans are going to die.' More recently, Bush has threatened to let these absolutely essential powers lapse by vetoing extension bills that do not meet his specifications. An administration that cannot tell a consistent story in public about why it needs new extrajudicial surveillance powers cannot be trusted to exercise those powers in secret."

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