**This appears to be incorrect. It was based on a story that CNBC has now updated. It was “Bain Consulting,” not Bain & Co., that advised the government on re-financing the automobile companies. — klh Ah!  Mystery Solved! Yesterday,in my post, “Crony Capitalism On A Grand Scale“—the title of the post borrowed from an op-ed […]

In my first of two posts yesterday, “What if Eisenhower’s budget were your (grandparents’) family’s?”, about an ABC News item from the evening before discussing Obama’s proposed 2013 budget, and propagating the truism, so popular among pols and pundits, that the federal budget is like a family’s, only with eight zeroes following total expenditures, income […]

An article in yesterday’s New York Times, which I think deserves much more notice than it seems to be getting,  says that last week, “Mr. Romney’s campaign held an elaborate “policy round table” fund-raiser at a Washington hotel, featuring panel discussions run by lobbyists [who are] former cabinet officials or members of Congress.” Today in the Detroit […]

What if Eisenhower’s budget were your (grandparents’) family’s? What if Kennedy’s were? How about LBJ’s?  Nixon’s? What if Reagan’s were your parents’ or your own family’s? How about G.H.W. Bush’s? Clinton’s? G.W. Bush’s? One of my pet peeves is the use by political reporters and pundits of sophistic or downright imbecilic supposed analogies.  (Like last […]

Last week, Dan posted what had been an email message I sent him in response to a link he’d sent me to an article by Thom Hartmann on Truthout about the Supreme Court’s infamous Citizens United opinion.  The key (consecutive) paragraphs of Hartmann’s piece, which I quoted in my email/post, were: Most Americans don’t realize […]

op-ed by Beverly Mann Political Opportunity (Not)   The link at the end of Steve Roth’s post yesterday, “American Exceptionalism #238: Opportunity (Not),” is to a post on Sunday by Paul Krugman on his NYT blog, in which he discusses Alan Krueger’s speech last week.  Krugman’s blog entry says:   “Alan Krueger, the chairman of the […]

An Invitation for Libertarians Here at Angry Bear, we’ve had a number of posts on LIbertarians over the years. Inevitably, someone writes to tell us we’re misrepresenting Libertarians… even when we’re quoting well known libertarians. So… if you are libertarian consider this an invitation. Send me one to three paragraphs on what it means to […]

Part of an e-mail from Beverly Mann on additional expansion of corporate personhood concept at the Supreme Court: I agree that, as the article at Raw Story says, the decision is a striking contrast to the court’s ruling in Citizens United, which upended decades of campaign finance regulation, allowing corporations to spend unlimited amounts on […]

by Beverly Mann Does the Tea Party Dislike Goodwin Liu? Politico had an article last week called “Will Senate ever vote on Liu?” Liu is Goodwin Liu, a prominent liberal Constitutional Law professor at the UC, Berkeley. His official profile at the U. is here. Obama nominated him in 2009 to the Court of Appeals […]

by Beverly Mannfrom The Annarborist A Scalia Tea Leaf on the Healthcare Law? Judicial decisions, like the Constitution itself, are nothing more than “parchment barriers,” 5 Writings of James Madison 269, 272 (G. Hunt ed. 1901). Both depend on a judicial culture that understands its constitutionally assigned role, has the courage to persist in that […]