"This was the voice of moderation until 13 Sept, 2025"
by hilzoy Scott Horton: "Senate Republicans are now privately threatening to derail the confirmation of key Obama administration nominees for top legal positions by linking the votes to suppressing critical torture memos from the Bush era. A reliable Justice Department source advises me that Senate Republicans are planning to “go nuclear” over the nominations of … Read more
by publius As the recession has worsened, we’ve heard lots of references to Japan’s so-called “lost decade.” The fear is that, without appropriate economic policies, the United States might suffer its own lost decade. My view, however, is that we’ve already suffered one of those – we just call it “the Bush years.” And as … Read more
by publius The fight over the stimulus – a preview of the budget wars to come – has obviously taken on larger ideological dimensions. And the stakes are high. It’s a fight over the very idea of whether government can play a positive role in people’s lives. That’s in part why the Republicans are fighting … Read more
by hilzoy Newsweek: "As reported by NEWSWEEK, the White House last month had accepted a recommendation from Attorney General Eric Holder to declassify and publicly release three 2005 memos that graphically describe harsh interrogation techniques approved for the CIA to use against Al Qaeda suspects. But after the story, U.S. intelligence officials, led by senior … Read more
by hilzoy The Senate voted Thursday to eliminate the estate tax for estates worth less than $5 million, or $10 million for couples (estates worth less than $3.5 million, or $7 million for couples, are excluded now), and to lower the tax on estates over that amount from 45% to 35%. (Note: you only pay … Read more
by hilzoy Anonymous Liberal notes this from Rod Dreher, writing about the Iowa decision to legalize gay marriage: "This morning, I had breakfast with some guys, including a lawyer. We weren't aware of this decision, but we talked about this issue. The lawyer said that as soon as homosexuality receives constitutionally protected status equivalent to … Read more
by hilzoy This is horrific: "A gunman invaded an immigration services center in downtown Binghamton, N.Y., during citizenship classes on Friday and shot 13 people to death and critically wounded 4 others before killing himself in a paroxysm of violence that turned a quiet civic setting into scenes of carnage and chaos. The killing began … Read more
by Eric Martin David Brooks veers dangerously close to the stripped down truth in discussing the origins of the current financial crisis: The best single encapsulation of the greed narrative is an essay called “The Quiet Coup,” by Simon Johnson in The Atlantic (available online now). Johnson begins with a trend. Between 1973 and 1985, … Read more
by Eric Martin Daniel Larison exposes the absurdity of the scaremongering-cum-warmongering about the likelihood (or lack thereof) that Iran would be willing to endure nuclear annihilation as an acceptable price to pay for the destruction of Israel (and Palestine and parts of neighboring Muslim nations as well): The real gem of Netanyahu’s interview was this: He continued: … Read more
by Eric Martin Reading over this interview Chas Freeman gave to Jim Lobe really drives home the point that in letting Freeman go, the Obama administration missed a golden opportunity to implement much needed reforms in an intelligence community that is, as Alex Rossmiller argued quite persuasively, Still Broken. Q: What sorts of procedural changes were you thinking about implementing? … Read more
by publius Good news on the national security front – a federal district court granted habeas rights yesterday to certain detainees being held at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan (pdf here). In doing so, the court applied – and relied on – the Supreme Court’s landmark Boumediene case from last year. (For those interested, hilzoy has … Read more
by hilzoy This is bad: "A once-obscure accounting rule that infuriated banks, who blamed it for worsening the financial crisis, was changed Thursday to give banks more discretion in reporting the value of mortgage securities. The change seems likely to allow banks to report higher profits by assuming that the securities are worth more than … Read more
by Eric Martin Over the weekend in Iraq there were a series of armed clashes between Iraqi government forces (with US forces in support) and Sunni tribal elements of the Awakenings movement. The violence was a manifestation of the growing frustration amongst the Awakenings groups at the Maliki government's slowness in integrating them into government security … Read more
by publius This is why I’m skeptical of the military escalation in Afghanistan. It’s very easy for me to imagine even more escalation, but very hard to imagine scaling operations down if they’re not going well. Plus, we don’t really know if we’re doing well because we have no defined exit strategy, benchmarks, or any … Read more
by Eric Martin Credit where due, and John McCain gets it for this: A resolution for President Obama to pardon former world heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson was introduced Wednesday by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), a posthumous bid to address the black fighter who was "wronged with a racially motivated … Read more
by Eric Martin Andrew Exum is making a whole lot of sense, in addition to some of the points that I made in a prior post in which I argued that 10-15 year long, multi-trillion dollar nation building efforts are not an efficient means to deny safe havens to terrorists. First, terror groups do not require "safe … Read more
by publius There’s a lot more that must and will be said about the GOP’s April Fool’s Day budget. But there’s one hilarious tidbit that needs mentioning. As we already knew (because it was the one specific detail in the last “budget”), the plan has a massive tax cut for the wealthy – lowering the … Read more
by von Given the active back and forth on this blog regarding the auto industry bailout, I wonder what y'all think about President Obama's apparent belief that a GM bankruptcy is now all-but-inevitable: President Barack Obama believes such a bankruptcy is the most likely way for GM to become a competitive automaker, people familiar with the matter … Read more
by publius Let me officially declare today John Calipari Day – the best day ever. Calipari, you see, will be the new coach of my beloved Kentucky Wildcats’ college basketball team. Rob Farley’s written on it – noting correctly that a statewide referendum would overwhelmingly approve Calipari’s record-breaking salary. Obviously, many of you don’t care … Read more
by von She might be inspired or she might be insane …. what's that? Ohh, sorry: inspired just left the building. Or: Don't blog about marrying one of your commentators and expect no commentary. This is a mid-week open thread. There is one rule: Do not feed the troll. That is, no talking about The Notorious A.L.T. (or her … Read more