Mark Kleiman

Trump took a couple of hits tonight – losing Maine was a surprise – and apparently he did as well as he did only because of big leads in early voting, faring much worse among those who voted on Election Day. Still, he’s more likely than not to be the Republican nominee – just above […]

Michael Hayden is a retired four-star general who ran the NSA and then the CIA under George W. Bush. Bill Maher asked him about Donald Trump’s plans to, for example, kill the families of terrorists, and Hayden replied that the armed forces would refuse to obey unlawful orders. This is (1) unsurprising (2) surprising and […]

To grasp the difference between Clinton and Sanders you have to truly understand the 1994 crime bill.

If intended literally, references to the GOP as “the stupid party” are just nasty snark. I doubt that Republican office-holders or voters have, on average, lower IQs than their Democratic counterparts. Ted Cruz, for example, would seem to be roughly on a par, in sheer brainpower, with Barack Obama. But there’s a deeper kind of […]

My post last night was based on the widely-reported but seemingly incorrect claim that the Senate was currently in recess, allowing the President to make a recess appointment to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court created by the death of Justice Scalia. In fact, it appears that the Senate will be holding pro-forma sessions […]

Update Several sources report that the Senate is in full recess until February 22, and the analysis below relies on that idea. But the Senate Democrats’ website says otherwise, reporting that the body is reconvening for pro forma sessions at three-day intervals.  If so – and that’s what I would have expected – the strategy […]

Political candidates make statements that do not closely track the facts. That’s a given. Sometimes it’s just fluff and spin: not creditable, but not a mortal sin, either. Sometimes, however, a candidate makes a statement suggesting that the candidate is either being deliberately deceptive on a matter of importance or simply has no idea what […]

Political journalists have something in common with second-rate social scientists: they find symmetry even where it doesn’t exist.  For example, “left” and “right” are in some ways mirror images, but only in some ways: they also have important structural differences. The most annoying current version of this tic is the tendency to lump together Donald […]

One of the occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge is dead after a shoot-out with federal and state authorities. Eight of the crew, including ringleader Ammon Bundy and his brother, were pulled over while driving to a meeting in a neighboring county. Five of the survivors, including the Bundys, have been arrested, and a […]