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

Textualism and The Exegesis of the 1982 Georgetown Preparatory School Yearbook

My understanding is that Bret Kavanaugh presents himself as a textualist, following Antonin Scalia he argues that words in the constitition and laws should be interpreted using their conventional meanings when they were written. This is in contrast to the different approach based on considering legislative history (which is impossible for the main body of […]

In the News – Sunday Morning

Senator Grassley tweeting: “Five times now we hv granted extension for Dr Ford to decide if she wants to proceed w her desire stated one wk ago that she wants to tell senate her story Dr Ford if u changed ur mind say so so we can move on I want to hear ur testimony. […]

The Messenger Wore A Skirt

I had written this in 2009 and it also appeared in “the new agenda.” It is a decent piece about people who saw the coming crisis pre-2007/8 and those who opposed them. Recently, Stanford Magazine did an article on one of the University’s former law review presidents who graduated at the top of the 1964 […]

Presidential alert sysytem

Via AOL is an interesting program: The Federal Emergency Management Agency is testing a new “presidential alert” system nationwide for the first time next week that will make it possible for Donald Trump to directly message nearly everyone in the nation who has a cell phone. Officials insisted that the system cannot be used for […]

Fighting Opioid and Painkiller Addiction

Some History In 1980, a letter to the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine by the Boston Collaborative Drug Surveillance Program stated “the risk of addiction was low when opioids such as oxycodone were prescribed for chronic pain.” It was a brief statement by the doctors conducting the study which was cited many […]

Is the Ecological Salvation of the Human Species at Hand?

The July-August issue of New Left Review published an essay by Robert Pollin titled “De-growth vs. Green New Deal” in which he outlines his objections to what Peter Dorman affectionately refers to as “a suicide cult masquerading as a political position.” I have written a response to Pollin’s article, that I have submitted to NLR, […]

Trump’s base: not the white working class, but white evangelicals — all men and lesser-educated women — who believe the ends justify the means

Trump’s base: not the white working class, but white evangelicals — all men and lesser-educated women — who believe the ends justify the means Via Digby: __________________ 1. Trump has always been unpopular with college-educated voters [A] Pew Research assessment … [using a] validated voter survey (they matched voter file with the survey respondents) showed white women narrowly preferring […]

Oklahoma Teachers Purge Statehouse of Their Enemies

“For nearly a decade, Republican officials have been treating ordinary Oklahomans like the colonial subjects of an extractive empire. On Governor Mary Fallin’s watch, fracking companies have turned the Sooner State into the earthquake capital of the world; dictated policy to her attorney general; and strong-armed legislators into giving them a $470 million tax break […]

Dutch Police React to Knife Attacker

‘A suspect has been shot after a stabbing incident at Amsterdam Central Station,’ Dutch police said on Twitter.” Briefly: – Two people stabbed by an attacker. – Three shots fired by Police. – Two victims stabbed taken to the hospital. – Wounded attacker taken to the hospital. Attacker did not have a bullet-spewing-weapon. No 30 […]