Ukraine: Calling It What It Is
In a very interesting scoop, a New York Times reporter talked to members of a pro-Russian militia in Ukraine. A soldier named Aleksey commented, “In western Ukraine, they showed their faces: Nazis,...
View ArticleAssad's Doing It Again
Many people breathed a sigh of relief when the US worked out a deal with Russia and Syria over Assad's use of poison gas in the Syrian civil war. Instead of launching an airstrike against Syria in...
View ArticleIn Love With the Earned Income Tax Credit...But Not Enough to Tie the Knot
It's spring, and love, love, love is in the air! Yes, conservative intellectuals have fallen in love with the Earned Income Tax Credit, the federal program that subsidizes workers in low-wage jobs.The...
View ArticlePakistan After the Karachi Airport Attack
C,Do you make anything of the latest kerfuffle in Pakistan? Will the Army finally decide that India is not its biggest problem? Will Pakistanis finally decide the US is not their biggest problem?HAlas,...
View ArticleFor Those Who Like Their Politics With a Dash of Linguistics
Here. Note the Arabic script. Sorry, I just love stuff like this.
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Every Economist in America Is Wrong: The Minimum Wage Is Better Than the EITC
Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but...Let's say we want to help low-wage workers. Which of these plans sounds better to you?Plan ATax: RichBenefit: Poor and middle classPlan BTax: Rich and...
View ArticleWhy Are the Democrats So Lame?
The newspapers are full of stories about how Democrats are struggling against Obama's low popularity, how they'll probably lose the Senate and lose ground in the House, and so on. "Oh, woe is me!" cry...
View ArticleAd for an Imaginary Democratic Candidate Who Wasn't Running From Obama
"By the numbers, the economy's doing really well."The unemployment rate is below 6% for the first time since before the crash. Even with the crash, the economy under Obama has created more jobs than in...
View ArticleObama and Ebola
God, that guy irritates me!We were recently treated to Republicans around the country running scare ads about Ebola and how it's some sort of failure by Obama. There was a failure of leadership by...
View ArticleComment on the Agreement with China About Climate Change
This seems huge to me, at least five minutes after reading about it. What strikes me about it is how it cuts the legs out from under Sen. Inhofe, Rush Limbaugh and all the other "hoax!"-criers. I mean,...
View ArticleNote on Charlie Baker
All this nattering about how the Democrats lost so big that even Massachusetts elected a Republican governor... it's coming from people who don't know anything about Massachusetts. First, before the...
View ArticleIf "the Democrats' Real Problem" Is Insoluble...What Then?
Writing shortly after the midterm elections, Josh Marshall had an article in TPM about "the Democrats' Real Problem." He agrees with those who say that the Democrats should have run on the economy,...
View ArticleRepublicans Parody Themselves
If you're a Republican politician, what's the stereotype you struggle against? That Republicans are out of touch with ordinary people and only care about rich people and corporations.So when...
View ArticleDept. of Naming Things: Inequality
A story in today's New York Times about how people have lost faith in the American Dream has this interesting passage:“I don’t know what you mean by an unequal distribution of wealth,” said Robert...
View ArticleThe Thirdworldization of America Continues
As I remarked some time ago, the Republican vision for America seems to be to make it the world's richest Third World country. Consider, I said, these frequent characteristics of Third World...
View ArticleThe Israeli Elections I: What's With the Arabs?
Israeli Arabs were pretty excited about this election, but not because there were unusual issues. A change in the election law had raised the vote threshold for representation in the Knesset (Israel's...
View ArticleHow To Solve the California Water Crisis
The California water crisis is all over the national news, thanks to Gov. Jerry Brown's imposition last week of mandatory cuts in urban water use averaging 25%. This has resulted in a lot of...
View ArticleThe Israeli Elections II: Bibi's Last Rabbit?
Benjamin Netanyahu used to be known in Israel as "The Magician," and there did seem to be something paranormal about how he saved himself in last month's election. Trailing by four seats in the polls...
View ArticleOn the Question "When Does Human Life Begin?"
When does an oak tree's life begin? I am not asking this frivolously.I would say: An oak tree begins life as an acorn.But an acorn is not the same thing as an oak tree. Then when does an oak tree...
View Article"Dzhokhar Tsarnaev"
The trial is now in the penalty phase, and I can't think of anything to say. So I'll talk about linguistics and orthography.Looking at his name, you can tell he's from a country in the former Soviet...
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