Tom

Michael Cannon writes: The American Medical Association was among the top five organizational spenders ($9,720,000 spent in the last half of 2005) in part because they successfully lobbied to block Medicare payment cuts, which had already been enacted into law and were scheduled to take effect this year. That would be the third or fourth […]

There is literally no way this was actually written by a sixth grader. The prose is far too clean, and the political slogans too well absorbed.

No reason not to quote this in full. Here’s The Wall Street Journal — no liberal paper they — on whether the Bush tax cuts paid for themselves: “While difficult to estimate precisely,” Treasury long-run analyses of the effects of President Bush’s tax cuts “may ultimately” raise total national output of goods and services by […]

Charles Franklin, a poli-sci professor at the UW-Madison, has posted an interesting analysis, comparing presidential job approval with midterm election results over the past 60 years. Points below the line-of-best fit represent elections where the opposition Party exceeded expectations — 1994, 1946, 1958, and 1966. On the flip side, in 1978 and 1982, did significantly […]

Quickly dispense with the notion that the Constitution contemplates the idea of a commander-in-chief who’s authority is absolute in all matters. It’s really about using an army to fight a war against a foreign power. Remember, at the time of the writing of the constitution, most Native American tribes were considered to be “foreign powers”, […]

Link: Rove Draws a Hard Line Between Conservatives, Liberals Over 9/11.

This sort of logic makes no sense to me. From Ken Baer’s post on the Casey/Santorum race: Yet, a few months ago, a veteran political strategist who has deepexperience working for women candidates in Pennsylvania, pointed out tome the danger in this strategy: namely, why should pro-choiceRepublican/Independent suburban women go and vote when faced with […]

I’m no legal scholar, but there are certain things that I don’t understand about the some right-wing critiques of the so-called “evolving standard of decency.” The critiques have reared their head again in the wake of the Supreme Court decision outlawing execution of juveniles. Just two things for now: The United States has not reached […]

Harold Meyerson’s op-ed on the LA mayoral race is a great summary save for one thing: it’s straight from the lips of Antonio Villaraigosa. That’s because the two are close personal friends, something Meyerson should have disclosed. It’s worth the read because the skeleton of the race is good (I, for what it’s worth, support […]