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

How the Supreme Court’s King v. Burwell Debacle Will End [Addendum added]

I have known for the last five weeks—since January 27, to be exact—that the Supreme Court will uphold the Administration’s interpretation of the federal-subsidies provisions in the ACA when it issues its decision in the infamous King v. Burwell case whose argument date at the Court is Wednesday.  I also have known since then that […]

Netanyahu Lied so far no one Died

February 23 Al Jazeera and The Guardian reported leaked memos from Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency to the South African intelligence agency. The memos contradicted claims of fact that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had recently made in his UN Speech (the one with the illustration of cartoon bomb with a burning fuse). This post mainly points […]

Scott Walker Announces His Foreign Policy: Privatize Social Security and Medicare; end the food stamp program and CHIP, and repeal the National Labor Relations Act

PALM BEACH, Fla. — Two days after provocatively suggesting that standing up to organized labor in Wisconsin has prepared him to fight terrorists overseas as president, Scott Walker told a crowd of conservative donors on Saturday that “the most significant foreign policy decision” of his lifetime was when Ronald Reagan fired 11,000 air traffic controllers. […]

Greek Deal

I am trying to understand what, if anything, was agreed by Greece and the rest of the EU yesterday. I’m not sure they even agreed to kick the can down the road. update 11:00 AM EST Tuesday 2/24/2015: It’s a deal. Greece has four more months without promising a 4.5% of GDP primary surplus. I […]

Shocking incentive failure rate in North Carolina

@sandymaxey points me to a new report from the North Carolina Justice Center that is making my head spin. Picking Losers shows that the state’s flagship development program, the Job Development Investment Grant (JDIG), has seen 62 of its 102 projects fail in the period from its inception in 2002 until 2013. That is, 60% […]

Clinton-Becerra 2016

I am not going to say nobody ever thought of this pairing, but a quick trip around the Google-sphere got me a paucity of results. So I am going to stake my claim here. Why Becerra? (Or for some Becerra who?) Chicano. California. Ambitious. Young. CPC (Congressional Progressive Caucus). The guy ticks off so many […]

Game Theory and the Filibuster

Ed Kilgore, who is not a hypocrite, still advocates limited use of the filibuster even now that Republicans have a Senate majority. He wrote The filibuster has always been a monstrous but mitigated abuse—monstrous in its antidemocratic pretensions but mitigated by rare use. I see little reason for its use right now when the president […]

Does Clinton Really Have People Around Her Who Think Elizabeth Warren Is a Man? Yikes.

Some people around Clinton assume that any skepticism about her candidacy has to do with latent sexism, but I’m pretty sure that’s not my issue, either. Last week, my 6-year-old daughter informed me that she couldn’t be president because she’s a girl. So believe me, if Hillary Clinton takes the oath of office on the […]