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

It is All in the Timing

In his editorial “Say Hello to Your Boy. A Special Guy,” Josh Marshall at TPM had this to say: “When I first read the Times story I wasn’t sure whether the younger Kennedy (Justin), whose title was Managing Director and Global Head of Real Estate Capital Markets, would have been someone to actually make loans […]

What I Want Bernie Sanders to Know Before Tuesday’s Debate

A few weeks ago Mike Huckabee made minor news by telling an interviewer that slavery has never been made unconstitutional.  Or, to be precise, he told radio interviewer Michael Medved that “the Dred Scott decision of 1857 still remains to this day the law of the land which says that black people aren’t fully human.”  […]

Anthony Kennedy Adds the Fifth Vote in the Citizens United Against Gerrymandering Opinion

Tomorrow, in addition to the predictable ruling in the EPA/mercury-emissions case, and in addition to a declaration of a constitutional right to same-sex marriage—another 5-4 ruling, in Obergefell v. Hodges—the Court will issue an opinion in Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, a case that could directly implicate continued Republican control of the House of Representatives.  […]

In its ACA opinion today, the Court significantly narrowed its “Chevron-deference” doctrine. I’m glad. Even despite the immediate repercussions for EPA authority.

[T]oday’s victory may have been even more decisive than it looks at first glance. It isn’t just that the Court ruled six-to-three in favor of the government’s position, with John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy joining the Court’s liberals in support of a single, non-splintered decision, though that’s important. It’s also that Roberts’ opinion may have precluded […]

Freedom. [Addendum added.]

Liberty.  States’ rights.  Freedom. Just ask Justice Kennedy about how the removal of federal constitutional checks on state and local courts, prosecutors and prisons has ensured our freedom.  Well, his, anyway. He’ll tell you.  It’s our constitutional design (his word), see. I keep wondering why international human rights organizations don’t aggressively spread information about this country’s states’-rights agenda […]

Obviously, the New York Times Editorial Page is Lying*

I know for a fact that the alleged facts stated in this New York Times editorial today are false.  Or at least that, contrary to the editorial’s claim, those facts, if true, no longer have any impact on black Americans’ financial status and educational opportunities.  None whatsoever. I know this because I read John Roberts’ and Anthony […]

The Campaign-Finance Transparency Canard … In All Its Orwellian Splendor

For the reasons explained above, we now conclude that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption. — Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, Anthony Kennedy, John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Jan. 21, 2010 I should have foreseen it on Monday.  That […]

Dear Greg Sargent: YOU may not know what Scalia and Alito were up to yesterday. But I do.*

The chief justice said almost nothing. — Supreme Court Appears Sharply Split in Case on Health Law, Adam Liptak, New York Times Okay, so how well did my predictions from three days ago hold up at the argument yesterday* in King v. Burwell? Well, I got the outcome right, but not the particulars of how it will […]

The appalling failure today of Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Stephen Breyer, Anthony Kennedy, John Roberts and Samuel Alito [Updated]

This speaks for itself.  I’m sure that Kennedy, Roberts and Alito call this ‘freedom’.  I won’t guess at what Sotomayor and Kagan call it.  But what Breyer calls it, or should, is conflict of interest.  Back when Breyer was lead counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee, he helped draft the Federal Sentencing Guidelines—a really appalling […]

The Confidence Fairy v. John Roberts (circa Apr. 2, 2014)

UPDATE: Wow. That tree limb I walked far out onto in my post below turned out to be sturdy after all.  A postscript is added below. Update posted 10/9 at 10:45 p.m. ____ There is no right more basic in our democracy than the right to participate in electing our political leaders. Citizens can exercise that […]