The House of Representatives has joined the Senate in passing the tax cut compromise deal that extends all the Bush tax cuts for two years, extends unemployment benefits for 13 months, cuts the payroll tax by two percent next year as a temporary stimulus, and gives every American three French hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pair… Read more »
Look: either the individual mandate is constitutional, or it’s not. And I, like many ObamaCare supporters, was admittedly too sanguine about this issue when it first came up. There are, I’ve come to realize, certainly some very legitimate arguments that it’s unconstitutional. (The Volokh Conspiracy is all over this.) It’s unknowable how the Supreme Court will eventually resolve the issue,… Read more »
Or perhaps we do: Everything you need to know about the new political group No Labels is contained in its slogan: “Not Left. Not Right. Forward.” It’s smug. It sounds like an Obama campaign catchphrase. And it ignores the whole reason politics exists, which is that not everyone agrees on what “Forward” is. … The group’s mission statement is filled… Read more »
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” an odious and indefensible policy of intentional and irrational discrimination whose repeal is supported by large majorities of voters, soldiers, and members of Congress, as well as the president / commander-in-chief and the leaders of the military itself, nevertheless remains the law of the land — likely for an indefinite period of time into the future,… Read more »
President Obama, whose political and communication skills were supposed to make him the “liberal Reagan,” has instead managed — somehow — to simultaneously and in equal measure piss off both his liberal base and swing voters, such that neither will be inclined to cut him any slack in the second half of his term. Liberals think he’s a total corporatist… Read more »
I already tweeted this, but since new tweets aren’t showing up in the sidebar right now, due to the hangover from the recent blog outage… Friday’s Planet Money podcast, about Europe’s debt woes and the potential Lehman-style mega-crisis that could be in their (and our) future, was a classic in the #PANIC!!! genre. It may be their most unnerving episode… Read more »
Bruce Schneier has a modest proposal: Securing the Washington Monument from terrorism has turned out to be a surprisingly difficult job. The concrete fence around the building protects it from attacking vehicles, but there’s no visually appealing way to house the airport-level security mechanisms the National Park Service has decided are a must for visitors. It is considering several options,… Read more »
Irked by the reality TV star and former half-term governor of Alaska’s ridiculous self-comparison to Ronald Reagan, and culture-war dismissal of the Bush family, Scarborough keeps calm, carries on, busts out the scathing sarcasm, and strikes back: What man or mouse with a fully functioning human brain and a résumé as thin as Palin’s would flirt with a presidential run?… Read more »
A Democratic concession today in Texas’s 27th congressional district brought the GOP’s net gain in the House to a minimum of 62 seats — and thereby clinched victory for TheSplenda in the Living Room Times 2010 Midterm Election Prediction Contest. TheSplenda narrowly edges out Kevin Curran (kcatnd) and John Presper (Joe Mama) by a single point, presently 107 to 106… Read more »
Our long state nightmare is finally over. And by nightmare, I mean about 6 days’ worth of post-election confusion about who was going to be our governor: that one white guy from southern Connecticut who promised to slash the budget, tax us fairly, and do it without causing any discomfort, or that one white guy from southern Connecticut who promised… Read more »
