Samuel Knight

*This, via the AP, seems like kind of a big deal: “Baby born with AIDS appears to have been cured.” “You could call this about as close to a cure, if not a cure, that we’ve seen,” Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health, who is familiar with the findings, told The Associated […]

There was an interesting development in Switzerland today for those concerned with rising inequality at home: voters there passed a set of ballot initiatives designed to control executive compensation. The government said 67.9 percent of voters had backed allowing shareholders to veto executive pay proposals as well as banning big rewards for new and departing […]

According to the AP, Brookings’ Tax Policy Center is predicting that this year, the rich will pay some of the highest tax rates since the Congressional Budget Office began keeping track of the data in 1979. The top 20 percent and 1 percent of earners will pay average rates of 27.2 percent and 35.5 percent […]

Dennis Rodman appeared on “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos this morning to talk about the VICE magazine-arranged trip he took to North Korea, where he spent a significant amount of time with Kim Jong Un. The exchange was as bizarre as one would expect it to be. Rodman, who at times was fairly incoherent, called […]

*Reuters profiled the Seattle teachers’ rebellion against standardized testing central to the so-called “Accountability Movement.” Teachers at the city’s Garfield High School “decided in January to boycott the multiple-choice Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test, saying the computerized exam is not aligned with the state’s curriculum and produces ‘meaningless results’ upon which they are indirectly […]

*In an interview with Spiegel Online, a pro-legalization Harvard economist insisted that the equivalent to the opening round of sequestration cuts could be saved on an annual basis if the United States would simply end the War on Drugs. “The prohibition of drugs is the worst solution for preventing abuse,” said Professor Jeffrey Miron. “Firstly, […]

This, probably, isn’t what the Republican Party needed — especially the day after 138 House GOPers opposed the Violence Against Women Act, after months of reluctance among party leaders to bring the bill up for a vote. Celeste Greig, the President of the California Republican Assembly — a volunteer organization that Ronald Reagan once called […]

John Kerry is in Egypt – his first trip abroad as America’s top envoy – and he wasted no time pushing policies that are likely to send the unstable country hurling toward turmoil, if Egyptian elites agree to them. Ironically – or not, depending on your level of cynicism – the advice is part of […]

Minor intrigue on the Presidential pardons front. One of the more serious offenders pardoned by the White House was James Anthony Bordinaro. The Gloucester, Massachusetts man had been found guilty of “conspiracy to restrain, suppress, and eliminate competition in violation of the Sherman Act,” and “conspiracy to submit false statements.” According to the Washington Post, […]

*According to experts interviewed by The Hill, the White House isn’t as constrained in implementing the $85 billion in sequestration cuts as it claims to be. Although the law states the cuts must be applied to every government account equally, “budget experts say some nuances within the law do give the administration some room to […]