Slate.com

With Rampart, the Israeli director Oren Moverman shifts into an idiom that’s more likely to appeal to American audiences than the quiet, downbeat social realism of his first film, The Messenger (2009). The partly-true story of a very bad cop brought down by the LAPD corruption scandals of the late ’90s, Rampart is much louder, jazzier, and more directorially show-offy than The Messenger (and, in part for those reasons, not nearly as good a movie). But at times this gritty, intermittently gripping police drama feels like a follow-up to The Messenger—not just because of the thematic overlap (both films deal with grief, substance abuse, and self-destructive masculinity), but because Rampart’s main character, the cynical, drug-abusing cop played by Woody Harrelson, might be the long-lost twin of the alcoholic Army captain Harrelson played in the earlier Moverman film.

At CPAC in 2011, Newt Gingrich took the stage to the stirring sound of Survivor's 1980’s rock anthem "Eye of the Tiger." He walked deliberately through the crowd. Here was Caesar returning from the wars. Tomorrow Gingrich will speak again at the same gathering, but the conservative who most deserves the dramatic, fist-pumping greeting is his presidential rival Rick Santorum: the lonely warrior who has triumphed without playing a soundtrack of self-regard, without the ready millions of Gingrich's gambling-magnate patron, and despite more derision from the elite media than Gingrich has faced. 

One of the most remarked-upon aspects of the first round of Prop 8 litigation, that concluded this week with a 2-1 defeat for the initiative at the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals, was the weakness of the case against gay marriage. As Andrew Cohen explained at the time, at every turn Judge Vaughn Walker, who presided over the trial, expressed frustration at the fact that the opponents of gay marriage either had no case or couldn’t be bothered to make one. Arguing for the gay marriage ban, seasoned attorney Charles Cooper called only two witnesses (the plaintiffs called 17), one of whom was not deemed qualified to testify as an expert. As Cooper finally explained in his closing argument, "Your honor, you don't have to have evidence for this. … You only need to go back to your chambers and pull down any dictionary or book that defines marriage," Cooper told the judge. "You won't find it had anything to do with homosexuality."

The Washington state Legislature approved gay marriage Wednesday. When Gov. Chris Gregoire signs the bill into law, her state will become the second Washington to recognize gay marriage since Washington, D.C., did so in 2009. Why do we have two Washingtons?

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The GOP candidates are still deep in the ritual dance of podium-pounding and posturing to determine who among them will take on Obama. Yet an unexpected display of unity is upon us: The three most viable candidates have raised their voices in harmonious opposition to the federal law that will compel all private health insurance plans—including those administered by religious employers—to cover birth control, as well as the controversial emergency contraceptives. Mitt Romney accused the president of “using Obamacare to impose a secular vision on Americans who believe that they should not have their religious freedom taken away." Newt Gingrich decried the law on NBC’s Meet the Press, complaining that “every time you turn around, secular government is closing in on and shrinking the right of religious liberty in America.” Rick Santorum, a father of seven who has already declared that contraception is “not OK,” called the law an assault on freedom of conscience and free speech. Today the Catholic network EWTN sued the government over the mandate, and evangelical leaders have joined the chorus.

Also in Slate, read an interview with Bronson Pinchot.

Also in Slate, read June Thomas' essay on the allure of home-renovation TV .

Strange as it may seem in the wake of the street parties celebrating Tuesday’s ruling by the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals invalidating California’s Proposition 8, there was a time when gay-rights advocates feared this day would come.

Hunting for business success stories in a recession is a difficult (and sometimes depressing) task. Most of the feel-good stories seem to come from the high-tech world and the burgeoning app economy. One important exception is Chipotle Mexican Grill, a company that shows there’s clearly room for growth and innovation in even the most basic sectors of the economy.