Reader Dan Hirschman, a U-Mich. undergraduate alum and currently a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology there, wrote the following comment to my post here yesterday titled “What I agree with Richard Kahlenberg about on Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action.  And what I don’t.”: Dear Beverly, Thank you for the fantastic analysis of this case […]

Wow.  It looks, from SCOTUSblog’s Lyle Denniston’s report on the argument this afternoon in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, that I was, um … right in saying yesterday and again earlier today that this case is not, at heart, an affirmative action case.  The case is really about when a voter referendum can […]

As Dan Crawford posted below, SCOTUSblog linked in its daily Round-up feature this morning to my AB post yesterday about Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, which is being argued at the Supreme Court this afternoon. Dan posted the Round-up paragraph in which the reference appears.  It says: Commentary on Schuette comes from Richard […]

WASHINGTON — House Republicans on Tuesday put forward the outline of a response to a Senate proposal that would end the government shutdown and raise the debt limit into next year, but would also make some changes to the health care law. Under their plan, members of Congress and the cabinet would be compelled to […]

  The Way to Stop Discrimination on the Basis of Race Is To Stop Discriminating on the Basis of Race. — Chief Justice John Roberts, Jun. 28, 2007, writing for a four-justice plurality in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1. Given that statement of his own belief, and his concomitant […]

When the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal reports on THE federal budget deficit what number do they use? When OMB gives a top line number for THE deficit what is included or not? In particular is Social Security included? Now some will immediately jump in and say, and perfectly correctly, that Social […]

Well the word out of DC this morning is that the GOP will cave on holding Obamacare hostage at least to the debt ceiling in exchange for negotiations on long-term debt with Social Security explicitly on the table. So it is time to review some basics here. First we have Public Debt and Debt Subject […]

Lifted from Robert’s Thoughts Obviously the main chance is that Boehner is bluffing and that he will bring a clean debt ceiling increase bill to the floor of the House and it will pass mostly with the votes of Democrats.  He would then probably lose the gavel to some new Speaker which will make us […]

From Policymic on the incremental re-instating government services: http://www.policymic.com   Why You Shouldn’t Expect a Compromise On the Government Shutdown Anytime SoonDon’t get your hopes up about a compromise on the government shutdown anytime soon. The Pentagon has decided to bring 350,000 employees back to work and the House has votedunanimously (no, I’m not kidding) […]

by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt Health Care Thoughts: Really Narrow Networks “Narrow networks” are in the news as the ACA exchanges begin to do business (or not?). From the Columbus Dispatch: http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2013/10/07/low-cost-premiums-thin-out-providers.html There may be other problems besides low payment rates. According to the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) contracting is slow, uncertainty is high, and […]