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By Richard Cummings Speaker of the House John Boehner is selling out America to help out a major contributor and Presidential candidate Charles “Buddy” Roemer is steamed up about it. Roemer, 68, criticizes Boehner’s attack on the Senate bill calling China “dangerous” (“Dangerous for whom?” he asks) and points out that Boehner’s leading contributor ($50,000 […]

By David Volodzko In 1994 rioting broke out in Vancouver after the New York Rangers defeated the Vancouver Canucks in game seven of the Stanley Cup Finals. The New York Times reported “as many as 500 officers…equipped with riot gear and using large doses of tear gas, battled into the early morning.” According to CBC […]

By Stephanie Friedberg In April 2004, Brandon Mayfield and his wife suspected that a stranger had been in their house. The signs of intrusion were subtle but unsettling — doors normally left unlocked were bolted and their carpet was freshly vacuumed. When Brandon was arrested a month later under a material witness warrant, the Mayfields […]

By Sarah Binder Just a few observations about Monday night’s passage of the deficit deal in the House: 1.   Any immediate risk to John Boehner’s speakership has been allayed.  Boehner managed to win the support of nearly three-quarters of the House Republican majority.   Similar to the dynamic in the April budget deal, the fabled “majority […]

By Elizabeth Samet Watch a 1940s or 1950s movie set in New York City — noir, comedy or melodrama — and you are sure to spot him: straphanging on a crowded subway car, buying a newspaper at a kiosk or sitting in a coffee shop. The anonymous man in uniform is a stock extra in […]

By Sarah Binder A reporter asked me yesterday about Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah)’s effort to forestall a challenge from his right at the Utah Republicans’ state party convention next year.  (Is it still called being “primaried” if you might first be “conventioned”?  Former Senator Robert Bennett to the white courtesy phone, please.)  I see that […]

By Matthew Kahn Malibu has some nice coastal property and the rich want to live it up on their private property but the state’s Coastal Commission wields some power. Do you feel sorry for The Edge? To quote the article; “The proposal led by the musician, whose real name is David Evans, called for five […]

By Matthew Kahn Do the Republicans believe in Keynesian economics? As I read this piece , it crossed my mind that the Republicans may have read Keynes and now seek sharp budget cuts because they believe that this will reduce aggregate demand in the short run, raise unemployment and hurt Obama’s re-election prospects. The budget […]

By Daniel Hopkins Well, I sure don’t know.  But thanks to the wonders of conditional probability and the data coming from prediction markets like Intrade, we can calculate those markets’ implied answer.  Intrade markets separately give us the probability that a candidate will win his or her party’s nomination and that he or she will […]

By Josh Eidelson Since Paul Ryan introduced his plan to save our grandchildren from our grandparents, I’ve been imagining a different way he could have sold the thrust of it to the public: “My fellow Americans, it’s time for straight talk, tough decisions, and tight belts. Health care inflation is a prime driver of our […]