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

America’s First Fracking Trial

Re-posted from Naked Capitalism (with permission from the author) comes a well written piece on an important court case concerning damages to health and property from fracking operations in Texas (hat tip Run75441): Texas Family Awarded $3 Million in America’s First Fracking Trial by Lambert Strether of Corrente $3 Million? More like this, please. Here’s some […]

Scott Brown Comes Out for a New Hampshire State Healthcare-Insurance Public Option. In the Name of Freedom. Cool!**

[Annotation added below.] I’ve written here on AB, extensively now, about the invidious co-opting of the word “freedom” by the political far-right.  I’ve addressed this mainly in the context of the conservative Supreme Court justices’ neat trick of disconnecting the word from any relation to actual physical freedom as long as it is a state court […]

Kudos to Ross Douthat for his rebuttal to David Brooks on Piketty. Now, who will rebut Douthat about recent tax-policy history?

It turns out that Paul Krugman is not the only NYT columnist/blogger who reads Angry Bear. Ross Douthat does, too! Okay, seriously: Douthat’s delicate-ballet filleting of Brooks’s take on Piketty is priceless. Now, maybe someone can fillet Douthat’s take on tax-rate increases for “Americans making (or inheriting) in the $100,000-$500,000 range,” which, he says, “is […]

Gail Collins (and me): Free Us From ‘Freedom’

To be fair, I don’t think Hannity had any idea about Bundy’s racial theories. However, it’s generally a good idea to be wary of lionizing people who go around saying: “I don’t recognize the United States government as even existing.” Anyhow, Cliven was toast, although he did make an appearance on CNN, in which he […]

The David Brooks Phenomenon: He does ‘rewrite’ for Megan McCardle! [UPDATED]

Piketty wouldn’t raise taxes on income, which thriving professionals have a lot of; he would tax investment capital, which they don’t have enough of. — David Brooks, The Piketty Phenomenon, New York Times, today Alexandra Petri has a trademark-funny piece today in the Washington Post that she promises tells you “[e]verything you need to know […]

The Supreme Court’s Runaway AEDPA Train–And What Can Be Done About It Via Collateral Judicial Review. (Yes, this is technical language, but bear with me. I explain it.)

UPDATE: Elena Kagan served as an Associate White House Council in the Clinton administration in 1995-96, when AEDPA was being drafted and negotiated.   —- “Freedom” does not include actual physical non-imprisonment; to the contrary, “freedom” means states’–or actually, state courts’–and prosecutors’ freedom to violate criminal defendants’ constitutional rights, to their heart’s content. — Me, Angry […]

“Hurricane”

Now all the criminals in their coats and their ties Are free to drink martinis and watch the sun rise While Rubin sits like Buddha in a ten-foot cell An innocent man in a living hell That’s the story of the Hurricane But it won’t be over till they clear his name And give him […]

Now That the Supreme Court Has Found a Right to Vote in the First Amendment, Are State Laws Denying the Vote to Convicted Felons Unconstitutional? You Betcha.

“There is no right more basic in our democracy than the right to participate in electing our political leaders.”  That’s how Roberts began the opinion. So I guess we can now assume that the Court will strike down all those voter-ID laws that so clearly impact that most basic of rights, and will do so […]

Health Care Spending Spikes: Why?

You may have read that health care spending in the private sector picked up both in the fourth quarter of 2013, and during the first two months of this year. Recent data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) show that during the last three months of 2013 spending on health care rose at an […]