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

Projecting

Apparently, the GOP Congress wants to investigate Biden’s fitness for the presidency four months after he left office. Other than squandering more tax money and distracting the media, what purpose would that serve? “Journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson sketched a picture of a well-meaning but weakened president in a book they released last month. […]

The Last Institutionalist President

Joe Biden  – by New Deal democrat Over 5 years ago, I looked at the 500-year history of the Roman Republic. In my penultimate discussion of its downfall, I wrote: “By 78 BC the Republic was dead on its feet. Virtually all of its norms of office-holding had been swept away. Political mobs using violence to get […]

A Partial Presentation- Joe Biden’s Legacy

Biden’s legacy: a Summary by Noah Smith – an introduction to Noahpinion Noahpinion Joe Biden announced today that he won’t seek reelection for President. We don’t yet know who will replace him, but we know Biden’s tenure in office will soon end. Now is the perfect time to talk about Biden’s legacy as America’s 46th […]

Global Polls

Global Polls OK, so I think the nations surveyed are biased, but I have now seen two polls with roughly similar polls.   So Pew, with a larger base and solid credibility has that among foreign nations polls in their nations data set showed an improvement in favorability rating for the POTUS have gone from 17% […]

Credit Card Interest Rates

Marquette Nat. Bank of Minneapolis v. First of Omaha Service Corp., 439 U.S. 299 (1978). In a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decision, the court held states anti-usury laws regulating interest rates unenforceable against nationally chartered banks based in other states. Justice William Brennan: It was the intent of Congress when it passed the National Banking […]

GAG. (And Paul Krugman is just so, so mystified that so many progressives support Sanders. Be mystified no longer, dear professor.)

Dan Crawford gave me the news this morning before I’d already learned of it. He emailed me with the subject title: “Merrick Garland…here we go!” He linked, without comment, to the NYT article on the announcement. I responded: UGH. I guess the idea is that there just aren’t enough super-establishment Supreme Court justices already. We […]

Biden Tips Obama’s Hand On the Choice for the Supreme Court Nomination. (I’m not unhappy about the selection.)

Obama’s choice to replace Scalia, it appears from Biden’s comments this morning, will be Jane Kelly, whom Obama appointed to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, based in St. Louis, in 2013. Josh Lederman of the Associated Press reports: WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is looking to nominate a Supreme Court candidate who has […]

Hamlet’s Decision is Bad News for Janet Napolitano

Okay, I get Joe Biden’s extreme, unabated grief over the death of his son last May.  But there are, in my opinion, no circumstances under which the Hamlet pose, with its many, many leaks from friends, should have gone on beyond Labor Day.  There are, after all, (or should have been, anyway) some important considerations […]