Two weeks ago, Linda posted a terrific, detailed post on the Camp hearings in the House Ways and Means Committee–which is not known for kumbaya, despite the chairman’s surname–on the possibility of ending or curtailing the tax deduction for charitable donations.  The hearings apparently were surprisingly serious in tone and nature, from what I could […]

In followup to this post of mine from earlier today, I want to point out Ezra Klein’s post from last night titled “On the sequester, the American people ‘moved the goalposts’.” It begins: I don’t agree with my colleague Bob Woodward, who says the Obama administration is “moving the goalposts” when they insist on a […]

Good lord.  So much ado about one high-profile journalist’s (deliberate or inadvertent; I can’t tell which) semantics ploy.   Stellar New York Times White House correspondent Jackie Calmes, in a lengthy article on the provenance of the sequester, explains the controversy: As this weekend arrived, Republicans were circulating a column by [Bob] Woodward published online […]

I was wrong.  It turns out that National Journal editorial director Ron Fournier wasn’t out sick the day his eighth-grade civics class learned about the separation of powers between the three branches of the federal government, after all.  He was present and learned about it.  But he missed a class a few weeks later explaining […]

I was wrong.  It turns out that National Journal editorial director Ron Fournier wasn’t out sick the day his eighth-grade civics class learned about the separation of powers between the three branches of the federal government, after all.  He was present and learned about it.  But he missed a class a few weeks later explaining […]

It’s hard to know who will end up taking the biggest political hit if the latest Washington-induced crisis moves from theoretical to real — but the answer may well lie in which side can get the public to buy into its finger-pointing at the other side. That’s why the excuses matter: Polls show Obama has […]

I’m a WWII buff, and also a journalism buff, and so this story by Paul Farhi in today’s Washington Post made my heart race a bit, especially since, well, I already knew some of it–the part about the charge that the iconic Joe Rosenthal photo of the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima, shot […]

It’s unconscionable to use our military men and women in uniform as a bargaining chip to raise our taxes. — Rep. Martha Roby, (R. Ala.) Our taxes, huh?  Ours!  This actually is unexpectedly good financial news for most of, um, us. Not to mention very surprising news. According to The New York Times today, Roby […]

By “this,” I mean this.  I don’t know, but it sounds to me like some of it is not.   Wish I could ask Chris Christie, a former (very high-profile) U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey (2001-2008).  He would know.   —-UPDATE:  In light of the comments to this post, saying that Florida […]

Yesterday, both sides drew their battle lines in the coming war over the minimum wage. After Obama called for a minimum wage hike in his State of the Union speech, House Republicans dug in against it, casting their opposition as grounded in concern for the plight of low wage workers. John Boehner asked: “Why would […]