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

You read it here first, AB readers. … [Important addendum added.]

I scooped everyone! ____ ADDENDUM: I would note that Ruth Bader Ginsburg will turn 83 on March 15 and that, while clearly still mentally very sharp, does not appear to be in good physical health.  There’s been a lot of speculation that if the Dem nominee, very likely now Hillary Clinton, wins the general election, and […]

Harry and Louise Now Support Sanders’ Medicare-for-All Plan. With Good Reason.

In the Comments thread today to my post yesterday titled “Clinton Announces When She Will Disclose Her Healthcare Insurance Improvement Plan: She’ll announce it just as soon as the Republican presidential candidates tell us theirs,” reader Urban Legend wrote, as part of a several-paragraph comment: While a single payer plan is superior in theory — […]

Clinton Announces When She Will Disclose Her Healthcare Insurance Improvement Plan: She’ll announce it just as soon as the Republican presidential candidates tell us theirs. [Typo in sentence referencing Max Ehrenfreund’s Wonkblog post corrected 3/2 at 2:28 p.m.]

Paul Krugman has been incessantly complaining about some Sanders supporters who accuse him and other high-profile Sanders critics, especially academics, of conflict of interest. The Sanders supporters allege all manner of self-interested reasons for the Sanders animus, much of it (including Krugman’s) expressed with vitriol. I’m not among the Sanders supporters who subscribe to the […]

Democrats and Progressives need to accept the likelihood that their nominee will be facing Trump in November. And they need to seriously consider what that actually means. [Edited. Cringe-inducing cut-and-paste typo corrected**.]

— Clinton [at a CNN-sponsored town hall last night in South Carolina] promised to go hard after Wall Street. The former Secretary of State faced criticism in a different department: her failure to release transcripts of paid speeches given to Goldman Sachs. “Sure, I’ll do it if everybody else does,” the former Secretary demurred, circling back to a familiar refrain […]

Hillary Clinton’s not very good at math.

The truth is, we aren’t a single-issue country.  We need more than a plan for the big banks. The middle class needs a raise. — Hillary Clinton, last night in her Nevada-caucuses victory speech We’re not a single-issue country?  Who knew?  That’s a peculiar message on which to hang her campaign—as she has been doing […]

A Question For Democratic Senate Judiciary Committee Members to Ask Sri Srinivasan If Obama Nominates Him to Fill Scalia’s Seat

In private practice, prior to his appointment to the appeals court, Srinivasan successfully represented former Enron Corp CEO Jeff Skilling in a Supreme Court case. The Supreme Court narrowed the reach of the so-called honest services fraud law, invalidating one theory used by prosecutors for Skilling’s conspiracy conviction and ordering further appeals court review. Despite […]

What exactly is Clinton proposing that would end racism, sexism, and discrimination against the L.G.B.T. community? Seriously. What proposals of hers is she claiming would DO THAT?

“If we broke up the big banks tomorrow,” Mrs. Clinton asked the audience of black, white and Hispanic union members, “would that end racism? Would that end sexism? Would that end discrimination against the L.G.B.T. community?,” she said, using an abbreviation for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. “Would that make people feel more welcoming to […]

Okay, let’s have a show of hands here: How many of you progressives want Obama to nominate a moderate to take Scalia’s seat? Because the Supreme Court should always be comprised only of arch-conservatives and a few moderates. How many want a former prosecutor, on the theory that the federal bench does not already have enough former prosecutors, and because the Supreme Court is just toooo pro-non-white-collar criminal defendant and tooo favorable to civil rights plaintiffs involved in the criminal-justice system?

Or how about another former Washington corporate mega-law-firm partner?  Like John Roberts?! Only moderate.  I mean, but what if he or she is an Asian?  And would be the first Asian on the Court?!  Or a woman?  Or, and a woman? Or what if she’s a woman whose husband is a military reservist?!  Or is a black former prosecutor, no gender preferred?  Or has political experience?! […]

Apparently there’s a special place in hell for Democratic politicians who criticize Barack Obama as insufficiently progressive. And a special place in heaven for politicians who have accepted $133,246 from the private-prisons industry but tell Black and Hispanic voters at a debate shortly before the Nevada caucuses and South Carolina primary that they want to end the private-prison system.

Nicholas Kristof  ✔@NickKristof Clinton is accusing Sanders of being anti-Obama. Feels fake and contrived to me, and rather nasty. 10:47 PM – 11 Feb 2016 Twitter ___ What worries me more than anything else about a Clinton general election campaign is her propensity to say obviously silly things. Elsewhere in that speech, in Clinton, IA […]