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

Paul Waldman conflates two entirely different things about media coverage: media coverage of and about Trump himself and media coverage of Republican congressional policy proposals. He’s right about one of those things, but clearly wrong about the other.

[The left’s] belief that Trump’s success is primarily a media failure has a parallel in the way conservatives have always explained their own defeats. We would have won, they insist, if only the media hadn’t been against us! If only they had told the voters just how much Barack Obama hates America, or if only […]

Paul Krugman Retracts a Key Part of Last Friday’s ‘Sanders Over the Edge’ Op-ed: That Sanders, rather than the New York Daily News editorial board members, don’t know what Dodd-Frank authorizes the federal government to do concerning ‘systemically important’ (a.k.a., too-big-to-fail) financial institutions. Good for him.

Which brings us to Snoopy, who has, for reasons I don’t fully understand, long been the emblem of the insurance giant MetLife. “At the end of 2014 the regulators designated MetLife, whose business extends far beyond individual life insurance, a systemically important financial institution. Other firms faced with this designation have tried to get out […]

Clinton admits she failed to do her homework, and therefore misunderstood, when she stated at the February debate that Dodd-Frank already authorizes the Treasury Dept. to force too-big-to-fail banks to pare down and that therefore no further legislation authorizing it is necessary. That’s quite an admission by her, and the New York Daily News editorial board (and the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza) should take note.

A notion is rapidly crystallizing among the national media that Bernie Sanders majorly bungled an interview with the editorial board of the New York Daily News.His rival, Hillary Clinton, has even sent a transcript of the interview to supporters as part of a fundraising push. A close look at that transcript, though, suggests the media may […]

A Kiss From a Used-Car Salesman—and why it’s important to tie Romney’s “47%” comment directly to his Orwellian lies

In a terrific article published on Friday, Slate’s John Dickerson asks: Which Mitt Romney DoYou Trust Most? Is he a cold-heartedconservative or a moderate Republican from Massachusetts? How can we know? As for the second of those three questions—Is he a cold-hearted conservative or a moderate Republican from Massachusetts?—I think there’s a third possibility.  I […]

Spain. Please, Mr. Obama, talk about Spain. Please.

ROMNEY: Look, the revenue I get is by more people working, getting higher pay, paying more taxes. That’s how we get growth and how we balance the budget. But the idea of taxing people more, putting more people out of work, you’ll never get there. You’ll never balance the budget by raising taxes. Spain — […]

GOP wants to repeal Dodd-Frank: instead they should listen to Nassim Taleb

by Linda Beale GOP wants to repeal Dodd-Frank: instead they should listen to Nassim Taleb Nassim Taleb, the author of the book on long-tail events, suggests in a Nov. 6, 2011 op-ed in the New York Times that “it is only a matter of time before private risktaking leads to another giant bailout like the […]