Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

The Start-Up They Signed

“The one thing you have over me is experience,” Mr. Trump said at one point. And yet it seemed clear through this last confrontation that there was a gap in knowledge, or at least in command of the material that candidates seeking to be president are expected to master. “Take a look at the Start­-Up […]

Obama should tell the public specifically—in meticulous detail—what the Syrian refugee vetting process IS. Since Clinton once again failed to do that.

There has been a great deal of concern about the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program. Are we letting terrorists into the United States? How much do we know about the Syrians being admitted? Is our vetting process strict enough? For more than two decades, I’ve devoted my professional life to refugee resettlement, working and collaborating with […]

Really disappointed that Clinton last night didn’t mention Trump’s single-year businesses losses of $916 million and his habitual stiffing of employees and contractors, and didn’t directly protest Wallace’s absurd the-stimulus-led-to-the-slow-growth assertion

After the first debate, there was some criticism of Clinton that she came off as “too prepared”—a semantic contrast to Trump’s lack of preparation—and then criticism of the criticism: How can someone be too prepared for something? The answer to that question is that what was really meant by “too prepared” was “too programmed.” That […]

Paul Krugman Gets Berned. Er, Burned.

In a speech to a Morgan Stanley group on April 18, 2013, WikiHillary praised the Simpson­Bowles deficit reduction plan, which included reforming the tax code to increase investment and entrepreneurship and raising certain taxes and trimming some spending and entitlements to make them more sustainable. The ultimate shape of that grand bargain could take many […]

John McCain Says He’s Glad a 5-4 Supreme Court Majority Fabricated a Constitutional Ground to Strike Down Most of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Law as Unconstitutional

Awesome. And to think that earlier today I was still worried that the Dems won’t retake control of the Senate.

On Liberty. (And Ohio.)

“We are Liberty students who are disappointed with President Falwell’s endorsement and are tired of being associated with one of the worst presidential candidates in American history,” the statement said. “Donald Trump does not represent our values and we want nothing to do with him. … He has made his name by maligning others and […]

The person whom Clinton should invite as her guest at next week’s debate: Warren Buffett

A major theme of mine in my posts at AB for a while now has been to try to highlight disclosures about Trump that have been overshadowed by others but that are important for more reasons than the most obvious one. During Sunday’s debate Trump shocked me (and I’m sure, Clinton) when he claimed that […]

My Near-Out-of-Body Experience While Watching the Debate Last Night: Hearing Clinton’s Answer To the Supreme Court Nominees Question

OMG. It came so late in the debate—the third-last question, the second-last on policy agenda, less than 10 minutes before the end. Asked what she would be looking for in selecting her Supreme Court nominees, she began not with a culture-wars answer or by referencing the need for diversity among the justices as concerned with […]

My email to a reluctant-voter friend whose pending federal-court appeal may well be determined by the election outcome before any new judges are appointed to that court

A friend of mine who is the appellant in federal litigation whose outcome she cares dearly about lives in a large swing state in which the presidential race and the Senate race are very close.  She is not particularly political and does not follow political news, other than what’s on her Facebook feed, and has […]

Why does Krugman hold Clinton and her campaign harmless for . . .

the public’s cluelessness about Trump’s policy agenda vs. her own? PHILADELPHIA — On Wednesday night, the Harvard Institute of Politics pulled together a focus group of eight millennial voters from the Philadelphia area, and a small group of journalists watched. One of the millennials supported the Green Party presidential candidacy of Jill Stein. The rest professed […]