Medicare Trustees Report

The latest report issued by the Medicare Trustees is not good. The HI annual cost rate is projected to increase from 3.11 percent of taxable payroll in 2007 to 11.40 percent in 2082—8.02 percent of taxable payroll more than the projected income rate for 2082. Expressed in relation to the projected Gross Domestic Product (GDP), HI cost is estimated to rise ...

Girls Sports Injuries More Severe

A long, anecdote-laden New York Times Magazine feature, "The Uneven Playing Field," examines the fact that, excluding football -- which girls generally aren't allowed to play -- female athletes are getting injured far more frequently and seriously than their male counterparts. Girls and boys diverge in their physical abilities as they enter puberty and move through adolescence. Higher levels of ...

Working Man’s PhD

In my Indiana-North Carolina postmortem, I noted my hatred for the term "working class" because "it implies that those putting in 60 hours a week at high paying jobs don’t work." Recently promoted full professor Dan Drezner, who is about to enjoy three months off from work ("if you don't count editing one book, writing part of another book, prepping ...

Fox Assistant Fired for McCain Worship

A young Fox News staffer was fired for telling John McCain she'd voted for him, Chris Ariens reports. Insiders tell us the assistant, identified as Jennifer Locke, was on assignment with a camera crew to cover the entertainment angle of the event. When Sen. John McCain walked by, the assistant said, "I voted for you in the primary, you're going to ...

Obama Wants to be President of all 57 States

An amusing gaffe from Barack Obama: "Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it." Presumably, he meant to say ...

‘Sociopaths’? Really?

I know that Andrew Sullivan is a fan of hyperbolic rhetoric ("fifth column", anyone?), and I also know that a lot of time I enjoy his hyperbole, even when I don't agree with it. But the past few weeks of his tirades against the Clintons have gotten tiresome, and I say that as someone who was never a fan ...

Sorenson Admits ‘Profiles in Courage’ Role

Ted Sorenson has finally admitted that he had a large role in writing Profiles in Courage, for which John F. Kennedy won a Pulitzer Prize as a solo author. According to a Wall Street Journal review, Sorensen says, for the first time, that he "did a first draft of most chapters," "helped choose the words of many of its sentences" and ...

Publishing the Laws is Against the Law

David Post , commenting on the State of Oregon's rather perverse filing of copyright infringement notices on several websites that published the Oregon Revised Statutes, What burns me up is that the State of Oregon would choose to assert its rather fanciful copyright claim for the purpose of making public access to the authoritative version of its laws more, rather ...

Still The Least Dangerous Branch

Anna Quindlen argues that Supreme Court appointments are the most important choices presidents make. Congress chips away at legislation, then sends some lowest-common-denominator version to the White House, to be signed or vetoed or later redesigned by the next president to take up temporary residence in Washington. But the work of the high court has had vast systemic influence over the ...

Hillary Clinton Losing Millions

Hillary Clinton may take a hit to her personal finances in excess of $11 million, Bret Schulte reports for U.S. News. With rounds to fight running out, the self-described Rocky Balboa of politics will soon be forced to assess the damage sustained by the most expensive primary bout in history. Sen. Hillary Clinton doled out $6.4 million of her own money ...

Heath Shuler Endorses Clinton

Always the master of timing, Democratic superdelegate Heath Shuler announced that he would support Hillary Clinton the morning after her poor showing in North Carolina convinced just about everyone that she was toast. This is especially interesting given that the first-term congressman represents North Carolina. Don Frederick describes the play thusly: A cynic might note that in announcing his support for ...

McCain Reaches Out to Latino Small Business Owners

John McCain goes Español in his latest ad campaign. Matt Yglesias calls the ad "shrewd," noting that Latinos tend to vote based on their interests rather than as a bloc, that McCain needs to distance himself from the "I hate immigrants" wing of the party, and that "given the tendency of small business owners everywhere to love the GOP a specific ...

Hillary’s Math Problems

George Will notes, as I have many times, that Hillary Clinton, rather than being almost a sure loser, would have had this thing wrapped up a long time ago had the Democrats operated on rules similar to those the Republicans use. [S]he was too late in understanding how much the Democratic Party's mania for "fairness," as mandated by liberals like her, ...

Going Out Like Al Gore

Tom Edsall argues that Hillary Clinton would get some "Big Rewards" if she drops out of the race now. She has ruled it out, but a prompt withdrawal from the contest for the Democratic nomination offers Sen. Hillary Clinton the prospect of major rewards. One of the most inviting is the near certainty that the Obama campaign would agree to pay back ...

Hillary Clinton Fighting On

As predicted, we'll continue to have Hillary Clinton to kick around: Hillary Rodham Clinton says she will remain in the presidential race "until there's a nominee." The former first lady declined to say whether that meant through the roll call of the states at the Democratic National Convention this summer. I'm not convinced she'll drop out then, either. UPDATE (Alex Knapp): For ...