David Ignatius seems to be my whipping boy de jour or de month, or de whatever. Dave’s latest offense comes in a column nominally devoted to the disquiet with which Australians view Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, “Australians are mortified by Trump’s rise”. Well, seeing as I am American, my mortification far exceeds any Australian’s, but…
Search Results for: ECONOMIC GROWTH
Paul and the Europeans
Paul Krugman has explained, several times that he is a very reluctant, though thoroughly convinced anti-Brexit kind of guy. Why so reluctant? Because of the “sad reality” that the EU has become: “The so-called European project began more than 60 years ago, and for many years it was a tremendous force for good. It didn’t…
The “Blob” lives! At the New York Times!
As I understand it, all the cool kids at the White House (whose number, according to Ben Rhodes, is limited to President Obama and, well, Ben Rhodes) like to call the blinkered, myopic terminally self-righteous American foreign policy establishment “the Blob.” That said, if you’re up for some seriously blinkered self-righteous myopia, you ought to…
Bill Nye, the not science guy
Reason’s Nick Gillespie catches Bill Nye in act of being a total asshole when, in a discussion regarding climate change, he “explained” why fear of jail time ought to be a necessary part of scientific inquiry, at least for climate change “deniers”: “In these cases [cases where people say things that Dr. Bill disagrees with],…
Running on empty: The liberalism of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and William de Blasio
President Obama wept while announcing his new executive actions that will supposedly protect Americans from guns, demonstrating that honest emotion is often the poorest of guides to both good politics and good policy, a lesson that today’s liberals are notably loath to learn. There was a time when liberals were smart about gun control. They…
Phony Evenhandedness, Case No. 377,421,903
Wash Post columnist Robert J. Samuelson sez: “Hey, those Republicans and those Democrats! They both need to grow up, amirite or amirite?” Well, sure, Bob, but when it comes to your topic du jour, the national debt ceiling, it’s the Republicans, and only the Republicans, who need to grow up. Because it’s the Republicans, and…
Thank God for Fareed Zakaria!
U da Man, Fareed! Yeah, a couple of months ago I made fun of Fareed, who was then singing those “Why can’t we be more like China?” blues, claiming that “With an absent United States, China marches on”. According Fareed, while Uncle Sam sits on his ass, “China marches forward, except now it is not…
Reply to Rauch, Part III
I seem to be making a (small) cottage industry replying here and here to Jonathan Rauch’s arguments in his freebie book Political Realism: How Hacks, Machines, Big Money, and Back-Room Deals Can Strengthen American Democracy, which casts a longing backwards look at the good old days on Capitol Hill, when House Speaker Sam Rayburn’s words…
Jonathan Rauch has words of wisdom. Or not.
Over at Reason, Nick Gillespie has a long interview with Brookings dude Jonathan Rauch, bearing the snappy title “The Case For Back-Room Deals, Party Hacks & Unlimited Money in Politics”, a thesis he spells out at greater length in his new book, bearing the somewhat less snappy title “Political Realism: How Hacks, Machines, Big Money,…
What should Republicans say now that the GDP is growing, the deficit is shrinking, and gas prices are falling? Reihan Salam has no fucking idea.
What should Republicans say now that the GDP is growing, the deficit is shrinking, and gas prices are falling? Well, says “thoughtful” Republican Reihan Salam, well, this is what Reihan said: According to Texas State University economist David Beckworth and National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru, the chief problem with the Republican worldview in the post-crisis years…