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

What’s Aleppo ?

“worse than you imagine possible even taking into account the fact that it is worse then you imagine possible” — Brad DeLong OK so Gary Johnson former governor and libertarian candidate for president asked Mike Barnicle “What’s Aleppo”. This is shocking and appalling, but the New York Times managed to top it. I will assume […]

The New York Post and Citizens United’s executive vice president say Republican administrations magnanimously hire liberal Democrats to fill positions in their Cabinet departments. Someone should educate them that this is not accurate.

Hillary Clinton’s current campaign manager kept a list of people who were not to receive State Department jobs being doled out — just as the new secretary of state entered the Obama administration — The Post has exclusively learned. “We are beginning the process of separating people we may want to hire from people we […]

Ballance in the Washington Post part CCCLXXIV

David Weigel balances Ballance with non Ballance in this remarkable passage in which he says that public ignorance about candidate’s policy proposals is and isn’t partly Donald Trump’s fault Whose fault is that, and whose fault is it swing voters are unsure where Donald Trump stands? Not the media’s — piles and piles of money […]

Washington Post Vs Washington Post

In the Washington Post Abby Phillips wrotes “Clinton isn’t doing better than previous Democrats with Latinos — even against Trump” While Greg Sargent wrote “If this new poll is right, Trump is absolutely shredding the GOP brand with Latinos” Both are horse race journalism, but Sargent is looking at the horses and Phillips is talking […]

From Small Town to Prison

With hard work, using publicly available data, not relying on off the record access to sources, Josh Keller and Adam Pearce have written an excellent important article which notes that from 2006 to 2013 the rate of new admissions to prison from high and medium population counties has sharply declined, but the rate of admission […]

More on Trump’s Tax Returns

by Linda Beale More on Trump’s Tax Returns The  New York Times Op-Ed by Mitchel Zuckoff (a journalism prof at Boston University), titled “Why We Ask to See Tax Returns” (Aug. 6, 2016), at A19, goes beyond my list of reasons taxpaying voters may learn items of interest from reviewing presidential candidates’ tax returns.  Looking […]

Washington Post Columnist Richard Cohen Gets It Right About the Clinton Foundation (in my opinion)

Back when I worked for the claims department of a major insurance company, I got stuff. Some of the stuff consisted of tickets to Broadway shows and sporting events, and sometimes I got bottles of booze, Canadian Club being a popular choice for some reason. These items were tendered to me by auto appraisers, repair […]

Premature anti Republicanism

This is an open thread inviting discussion of the very serious people who discuss how opinions differ on shape of planet, but no longer claim both sides have a point. I am old enough to remember when only shrill dirty fucking hippies argued that the GOP had gone crazy. After the Trump nomination, that fringe […]

Interesting Atlantic Article

“The Original Underclass” I have written on upward mobility several times at AB. This article goes along similar lines of what I have been saying. If you are already upper class, the chances of you dropping down to the lowest level are slim to none. If you are in that first quintile of income, the […]