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

A Particularly Poignant, and Revealing, Juxtaposition of Politico Articles Published a Day Apart

Terry Havener, 62, a retired union carpenter, pictured with Johnstown in the background. He was hoping for Bernie. He voted for Jill Stein. | Scott Goldsmith for Politico Magazine — Photo caption in THE FRIDAY COVER: What Trump Voters Want Now The blue-collar workers who put Donald Trump in the White House are ready for […]

A question looming before the debate last night was: Which of two mutually exclusive positions Clinton has taken recently on Dodd-Frank’s too-big-to-fail provision would she repeat in the debate? The answer: Both. [Updated 4/16]

As for Clinton herself, her bandwagon-jumping nature is a big reason why so many people dislike her.  But in this instance there was the additional element of dishonesty: she knew that Sanders rather than the editorial board members had it right about what Dodd-Frank provides. She had said so publicly, recently, in a statement in […]

Oh, Dear.

[GLENN] THRUSH: When [Sanders] puts his head on a pillow at night, do you think he goes to sleep a Democrat? CLINTON: [Laughs] Well, I can’t answer that, Glenn, because he’s a relatively new Democrat, and, in fact, I’m not even sure he is one. He’s running as one. So I don’t know quite how to characterize […]

Liberals, and especially African-American liberals, should not encourage Senate confirmation of Garland to the Supreme Court

Repubs apparently now think they can have the last laugh.  Senate Repubs reportedly now are considering whether to confirm during the lame duck session after the election if Clinton wins.  But of course, then Garland would be expected to withdraw if Obama does not withdraw his name saying that Clinton and the new (Democratic-controlled) Senate […]

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 […]

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 […]

Hillary Clinton’s Interesting New Math. (It doesn’t appear to have been devised by academics, and hopefully it will not become part of public school curriculums.)

Defending herself from claims that she’s too cozy with Wall Street, Clinton responded, “Not only do I have hundreds of thousands of donors, most of them small….” The Federal Election Commission defines a small donation as less than $200. Her campaign has received $13.3 million in small donations, just a fraction of her total haul […]

The Oklahoma Republican Party calls Walmart and the mega-corporate fast-food and hospitality industries animals dependent on food stamps. And its chairman wants a national discussion about it. Oblige him, Democrats.

In any event, it’s completely unclear where people will stop in for hamburgers and fries, and where they will buy extremely cheap household items, once the fast food industry and Walmart have ceased to exist because there no longer are Americans who lack the skills and qualifications for good jobs and they’ve all found good […]

Okay, so Douglas Holtz-Eakin thinks that proposing policies that have been proposed before but have not been adopted (or are no longer in force) is the same as proposing policies that have been adopted and are still in place. Seriously, he completely conflates the two.

Many conservatives breathed a sigh of relief after the speech, having feared a fresh set of innovative proposals that might have required serious responses. “I think it’s a horse race between what’s more tired, her or the material,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin of the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “There really isn’t anything new here. It’s really […]

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.  […]