Flynn Bails, but Don’t Get Your Hopes Up I haven’t seen anything yet to convince me that the Putin-Trump collaboration was a big deal. Ugly and unprincipled, sure, but politically consequential, probably not. A contrary view, expressed by Harry Litman in today’s New York Times, is that this is the beginning of the end for the […]
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/01/business/economy/tax-plan-economists.html?_r=0 Douglas Holz-Eakin balanced with Kimberly A. Clausing in the NYT. Link in the picture. To think that looting could be so calmly described with ballance.
Bruce Bartlett: “Prediction–EVERY Republican senator will whore himself or herself to pass this tax monstrosity. They should all go to Hell.” Bruce Bartlett: “Prediction–Democrats will stay home on Election Day 2018 because that’s what they always do best(last word is mine)” Predictions
AARP notes a planned reduction in Medicare funding. I have not hear much from them as in times past. If you read through the umpteen pages of the Senate tax bill, you won’t find a clause that says it dramatically cuts Medicare spending. But the effect of the legislation being debated this week would be […]
Tolerance And Terrorism In Saudi Arabia On the one hand this past week, Thomas Friedman at the New York Times has written a praising column about Crown Prince Muhammed bin Salman (MbS). He is going to bring a new “wave of tolerance” into Saudi Arabia, along with more generally modernizing it. This claim is not […]
A Race To Suppress Academic Freedom? The race is between the two nations competing for global dominance, the US and China. This post is triggered by an unnamed editorial in today’s Washington Post (probably authored by Fred Hiatt) criticizing China for imposing ideological limits on Chinese universities. Since the recent party congress, 40 universities have […]
The more people think about the Republican proposal to cut corporate taxes the worse it looks. Most people dismiss the argument that the benefits will trickle down to workers. Supporters’ argument is that reduced taxes on profits will cause increased investment which causes higher production and wages. There are strong arguments that the tax cut […]
Proposing A Judicial Coup Via A Tax Bill On today’s Washington Post editorial page in a column entitled “Packing the courts like a turducken” (a deboned duck within a deboned chicken within a deboned turkey, or something like that, all for Thanksgiving, thank you), Ronald A. Klain not only reports on the actual push to […]
Two Powerful Women Losing Power That would be respective Angela Merkel and Janet Yellen, both reported to have lost a lot of power in today’s Washington Post. During at least the last year, if not the last four, they have been probably the two most powerful women on the planet. In the case of Merkel, […]
Lifted from comments reader Denis Drew: Donald Trump’s Response to Disaster Aid for California: Nothing Kevin DrumNov. 20, 2017 http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/11/donald-trumps-response-to-disaster-aid-for-california-nothing/ “A few weeks ago, California requested $7.4 billion in disaster aid following the massive series of wildfires in the northern part of the state that killed 43 people and destroyed nearly 9,000 structures. Actually, let’s […]