Nick Kristof is shrill: If China or Iran threatened our national credit rating and tried to drive up our interest rates, or if they sought to damage our education system, we would erupt in outrage. Well, wake up to the national security threat. Only it’s not coming from abroad, but from our own domestic extremists. …
(I originally posted this yesterday at Google +) Here’s a novel approach to the debt ceiling dilemma: raise it unilaterally. How? Not based on some strained 14th Amendment reading, but based on the argument that the “necessities of state, and on the president’s role as the ultimate guardian of the constitutional order, charged with taking …
Boehner walks away. In remarks at the White House Friday evening, President Obama said that Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) had informed him that he would be “walking away” from talks about an expanded deal to raise the debt ceiling in return for billions of dollars in spending cuts, tax reforms and revenue …
Continue reading ‘Republican intransigence continues, world economy holds breath’ »
If this debt ceiling calamity is averted there’s going to be a huge celebratory orgy of self-congratulations by members of both parties, and it will be entirely inappropriate. The whole thing shouldn’t have gotten to this point in the first place. If there were grownups in the Republican party it wouldn’t have. Boehner and McConnell …
Worst. Congress. Ever. Nope, that’s not me saying it. That’s Norm Orenstein, a Congress-watcher for 40 years. This is representative of his observations: There is now no overlap ideologically at all between the parties. Only nine of the remaining small number of conservative House Democrats (now called “Blue Dogs”) were to the right of the …
An interview: MR. ISAACSON: Do you think that President Obama waited too long to get deeply engaged? DR. SUMMERS: No. I mean I think you can make that argument. Look, I think the biggest problem the country has right now is not the budget deficit. The biggest problem the country has right now is the …
Since all this “Gang of Six” has produced is an outline of a deficit reduction plan, I don’t see any way in hell it could be passed before August 2 when the debt ceiling must be raised. So can there be some kind of continuing resolution to raise it while the bill is marked up? …
How, I ask, did any of these idiots make it to adulthood, much less get elected to Congress? On one side, the Obama Administration, Capitol Hill Democrats, Wall Street whizzes and budget experts have been wearing out their thesauruses looking up new words for “catastrophe” as they try to explain to the public that failing …
Well, hell. Borders plans to liquidate. It’s a blow, but not an unsurprising one. Aside from the employees losing their jobs the worst of it is that to me it’s a neighborhood store, about 3/4 of a mile down my hill. There’s not another new book store within ten miles of me. More knowledgeable people …
This is exactly what’s wrong with the US media, neatly encapsulated in a single sentence. One thing’s for sure: The race instantly becomes more interesting if Rick Perry runs. There’s no discussion of whether the man’s accomplishments as Governor of Texas qualify him to hold the office of President of the United States. There’s certainly …
Continue reading ‘Why I think the media’s political coverage is weak’ »