Tag Archives: politics

A Weak Defense of Citizen United: Ownership v. Control Many thanks to Peter Dorman for highlighting Citizens United As Bad Corporate Law. I guess we had to endure this comment, which is a really weak rebuttal: Corporate shareholders are most definitely owners; they alone have the authority to sell their shares or the company’s assets. Their rights are based not on contract law but statutory rules of franchise. They are guaranteed rights of assembly abd...

A Few Thoughts on “Sorry to Bother You” I saw this film several weeks ago and have been meaning to say a few things about it.  Herewith: 1. This is an exceptionally intelligent movie by American standards.  It maintains a high level of wit and observation from beginning to end, and little zingers flash by in almost every frame without announcing themselves.  It speaks up to its audience, something I really appreciate. 2. STBY fits into a tradition of...

Citizens United, Thoroughly Debunked I admit I haven’t paid too much attention to debates over Citizens United, since I regard the direction taken by regulation, control over who may contribute to political campaigns and how much they can put up, to be misguided.  I would like to see comprehensive control over how much money can be spent on behalf of candidates, period.  (I would also like to see a mandate that all such contributions be funneled through...

Is the Ecological Salvation of the Human Species at Hand? In “De-growth vs a Green New Deal,” Robert Pollin relies on the same blurring of distinctions that Robert Solow employed 46 years earlier in his condemnation of The Limits to Growth as “bad science.” Nicholaus Georgescu-Roegen pointed out Solow’s obfuscation in the article that inspired the term “degrowth.” That historical context is vital for understanding why Pollin’s “blueprint for ecological...

by Brad Delong (originally published at Grasping at Reality with at least Theree Hands) BRETT KAVANAUGH: A MULTIPLE TRAIN WRECK IN MANY DIMENSIONS: MONDAY SMACKDOWN I confess that I have been procrastinating on various things. Why? Because I have been unable to tear my eyes away from the multiple train crash that is the confirmation process… the career… the life of Brett Kavanaugh. My view of this is a third- or fourth-hand view. It is the view of...

Mainstream Media Says Trump Triumphs Over Iran! That would be several stories in both the New York Times and the Washington Post over the last two days: Trump’s policy against Iran is a great success and it  is completely reasonable and justified. This reporting and columnizing has followed three tracks. One was in a column yesterday in WaPo from Mark Thiessen of AEI, generally pro-Trump.  His column was about how Trump in general doing well on foreign...

Senator Grassley tweeting: “Five times now we hv granted extension for Dr Ford to decide if she wants to proceed w her desire stated one wk ago that she wants to tell senate her story Dr Ford if u changed ur mind say so so we can move on I want to hear ur testimony. Come to us or we to u,” I like how tweeting brings out the intellect in people and especially our politicians. And Chuckie the tweeting senator does this on a public forum with Ford and...

Sunday Morning “New Yorker” WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Millions of Americans do not want Donald J. Trump to text them that there is an emergency, but “very strongly” want Robert Mueller to text them when this current emergency is over, a new poll shows. FEMA’s about-to-be-launched “Presidential alert” system drew a sharply negative reaction in the poll, with a majority of Americans saying that they would burn, smash, or otherwise pulverize their...

Go, Secretary Mnuchin! Save The Iranian Banks! In the Sept. 14 Washington Post, Josh Rogin is all shocked and upset about a report that people in the US Treasury Department, apparently supported by, if not outright led by, Secretary Steve Mnuchin, have been stonewalling or slow-moving a memo that was ordered up by President Trump in late July in order to implement the fully renewed financial sanctions against Iran, specifically to disallow Iranian banks...

Via AOL is an interesting program: The Federal Emergency Management Agency is testing a new “presidential alert” system nationwide for the first time next week that will make it possible for Donald Trump to directly message nearly everyone in the nation who has a cell phone. Officials insisted that the system cannot be used for political purposes. FEMA also assured people that it can’t track cell phone users’ locations through the alert system. No one...