After Mary Matalin claimed on Meet the Press that: (a) Bush ran on a clearly articulated agenda; (b) that it was the Democrats who said outrageous things during the campaign; (c) that we Democrats demonized Christians and treat then with disdain and contempt; (d) we Democrats have a disdain for the democratic process and (e) […]

Following up on Kash’s post on the possibility of Republicans amending Senate rules to eliminate filibusters, at least in the context of judicial confirmations, I challenge anyone to watch Senate majority leader Frist’s address last Friday to The Federalist Society and conclude that he is not ready to end judicial filibusters. (To watch, go here […]

The Bush administration is apparently making great strides in improving the quality of the nation’s intelligence, by throwing the CIA into turmoil and potentially causing a large fraction of its most experienced staff to quit in disgust: The deputy director of the CIA resigned yesterday after a series of confrontations over the past week between […]

More evidence that this Administration is undermining the Constitution: WASHINGTON (CNN): In his first public appearance since submitting his resignation, Attorney General John Ashcroft sharply criticized federal judges Friday for “second guessing” the Bush administration’s decisions on handling prisoners captured in the war against terrorism. Without referring to specific adverse rulings on the treatment of […]

Andrew Sullivan turned Alan Keyes moralist in this rant suggesting progressive taxation amounts to discrimination. Then again – Sulli also thinks the right of privacy (as in Roe v. Wade) is a sin. Bob Somerby turns his shape eye on Sulli’s flat tax rant in his latest Daily Howler: No mainstream pol has ever proposed […]

Dana Priest reports: Michael Scheuer, the author and former chief of the CIA’s Osama bin Laden unit, announced yesterday that he had resigned from the agency so he could speak openly about terrorism and what he sees as the government’s failure to understand the threat from al Qaeda. “I have concluded that there has not […]

Senate Republicans are giving all indications that they are seriously considering the “nuclear option” of taking away Democrats’ ability to filibuster judcial nominees. The 200 year history of Senate procedures notwithstanding, many Republicans in the Senate think that traditional Senate rules should now be changed. It goes without saying that their desire to change the […]

This title is taken directly from this MSNBC story, which notes that Bush had a 136 thousand vote lead before the provisional ballots and that there are 155,337 provisional ballots. David Wade of the Kerry camp stated: While the outcome of the election is not in doubt, no one cares more about voting irregularities than […]

In thinking about Social Security privatization Brad DeLong writes: Will [Social Security privatization] be a good deal? It could be, if: The large premium return on equities really is a market failure that private accounts can profit from, rather than merely compensation for risk. Private accounts are set up so that they are not eaten […]

Where’s the inflation? Oil prices have risen by about 50% this year, while the dollar has weakened by about 10% (on a trade-weighted basis), which raises import prices. We would typically expect both of these effects to generate inflation. Yet most measures of inflation still show it at historically very low levels. However, this CBSMarketwatch.com […]