Samuel Knight

*Unlike Elizabeth Warren, who said she isn’t running for President in 2016 despite the recent tsunami of ink practically begging for her to do so, Bernie Sanders hasn’t ruled out a progressive candidacy. Via Friday’s Burlington Free Press: “There are people in this world who, ever since they were 12 years of age, they decided […]

For all the chatter about healthcare reforming rocking Democrats, a special election in the deep south last night indicates that the Tea Party is DC’s sick man. Vance McAllister, an outsider-businessman, won 60% of the vote and defeated state senator Neal Riser in the contest to represent Lousiana’s 5th district in the House. Both are […]

This website business is no small potatoes. As I alluded to in the previous post, problems with Healthcare.gov have serious implications. They make ACA-mandated program cancellations and the general transition to Obamacare harder for both the administration and Americans to cope with. On Friday, Josh Marshall quoted, at length, a reader who desperately wants the […]

Kelly Ayotte was on Meet the Press this morning, demonstrating that, despite the ACA roll-out debacle, Republicans still have nothing to offer uninsured Americans. Discussing health insurance plan cancellations, Ayotte said that the government should “do no harm,” quoting the Hippocratic Oath. Without offering much detail, she said a Republican alternative to the ACA would […]

*The U.S. and Britain are dispatching military units to the Philippines to assist in aid efforts after Typhoon Haiyan ravaged the country. Via CNN: “Right now, the U.S. military capability is continuing to grow,” U.S. Marine Brig. Gen. Paul Kennedy told CNN on Sunday. “We need to get life-sustaining aid immediately out to the stricken […]

*Well it didn’t take very long for Dealbook to find a connection between Tim Geithner’s future employer and TARP: Warburg Pincus has also taken stakes in banks aided by taxpayer dollars through TARP. That includes Webster Financial, a New England lender in which the firm reaped a return of about 35 percent. Another was Sterling […]

In the run-up to the 2010 mid-term Tea Party “shellacking”, Republicans artfully exploited vague fears about the national debt and the role of government in healthcare, and received outsized influence in the 112th Congress due to low turnout among younger voters. According to a George Mason University study, “young” voters made up 18 percent of […]

The myth about Washington being more divided than ever (a notion, for example, that legislators in 1860 might disagree with) is particularly frustrating to anyone to the left of Jon Hunstman because the “polarization” is glaringly lopsided. There isn’t much daylight between the President and much of the GOP. So why is it that establishment […]

It’s official. Voters in Seattle have approved of a ballot measure that will haunt the city for the next four years. Socialist Alternative candidate Kshama Sawant cemented her spot on Seattle City Council yesterday evening, after officials spent ten days tabulating ballots cast by mail. As local NBC affiliate KING5 explained: Longtime Seattle City Council […]