Donald Trump not a nice person, Megan McArdle discovers Well, he isn’t. As Megan explains, following the announcement by Texas Republican Representative Will Hurd, the sole black Republican in the House, that he is retiring: All of which [Hurd’s intelligence, honesty, and decency] makes Hurd’s impending departure the perfect symbol of what has happened to…
Search Results for: NEW YORK TIMES
I Am Jill’s Hyman
“It’s a wonderful name!” That’s what my mother used to tell me. If your own mother won’t tell you the truth, who will? But Hyman Bookbinder is not a wonderful name, not unless you plan to spend your entire life on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. For some people, of course, that’s heaven, but…
Donald Trump not a good guy, Paul Ryan discovers
“Those of us around him really helped to stop him from making bad decisions. All the time. We helped him make much better decisions, which were contrary to kind of what his knee-jerk reaction was. Now I think he’s making some of these knee-jerk reactions.” Thus former House Speaker Paul Ryan on Donald Trump, in…
The Ecstasy of St. Dave
David Brooks has, in no particular order, left his wife of 27 years, married a woman 23 years his junior—his “research” assistant; who could see that coming?—and found Christ. He’s written a book on the latter, The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life, which apparently involves, well, dumping your old wife and finding…
Who could have seen this coming? Except everybody, I mean
Politico has the word: “Big businesses paying even less than expected under GOP tax law”. That’s right, according to Brian Faler, “Federal tax payments by big businesses are falling much faster than anticipated in the wake of Republicans’ tax cuts, providing ammunition to Democrats who are calling for corporate tax increases.” It gets worse, says…
Takes, short and not so short
Nancy Pelosi is invisible, says George F. Will In a not bad considering column, George F. Will urges congressional Democrats to “temper their enthusiasm for impeachment with lucidity”, listening to words of wisdom from others, including Greg Weiner, “Madison scholar par excellence” and author of a new book that Mr. Will has either read or…
The CIA lies well—and David Ignatius is glad to help!
Mole hunt! Mole hunt! That’s the cry over at the CIA, and it’s exciting! See, here’s the deal. Back in the day, it seems that the Chinese were picking off our “key informants” (aka, “spies”), and no one knew how or why. Thanks, however, to bungled “tradecraft” on the part of the Chinese, the good…
Dirty Chinese try to prevent the U.S. from spying on them
Jerry Chun Shing Lee, a former case officer with the CIA, pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide intelligence information to the Chinese government. He did not admit to actually providing information. You can read about the case in this story from the New York Times by Julien E. Barnes. According to Barnes, Lee’s case “highlighted…
Gregory Mankiw, dean of conservative economists. He got it only half wrong.
After the fortunate demise of President Trump’s nomination of Republican hustler Stephen Moore for a position on the Federal Reserve, Paul Krugman remarked “Aside from Harvard’s Greg Mankiw, not one prominent Republican economist stepped up to oppose Moore.”1 And indeed “Greg”, as I guess his friends like to call him, gave the news of Steve’s…
Veronique de Rugy and the howler of the week
Libertarian gal/scholar Veronique de Rugy starts off her latest column in the New York Times with the understatement of the year (and I have been keeping track): “Fools like me who believed that President Trump would “drain the swamp” in Washington have been enduring one disappointment after another.” I believe the phrase you’re looking for…