Quitters

In the space of less than 24 hours, three major races have been impacted by candidates deciding to quit. In Afghanistan, challenger Abdullah Abdullah has reportedly decided not to participate in the run-off election with Hamid Karzai for president.  This makes the U.S. attempt to pretend Karzai is a legitimate, democratic leader somewhat more difficult. In the California governor's race, San Francisco ...

Recession Over?

While it is good news that the economy grew last quarter I think claims that the recession is over are premature. Why? Because I think the last quarter’s numbers are due to gimmicks by the Obama Administration as was discussed last night on OTB Blog Radio and also when looking at this post by Dave Shuler at the ...

Martians Can’t Sue

Eugene Volokh brings to our attention, rather belatedly, the case of Joly v. Pelletier, in which Rene Joly brought a suit some ten years ago alleging that Pelletier and others had conspired to suppress evidence that he was a Martian.  The judge dismissed the case on two grounds: 1. Neither pleading discloses a cause of action. While conspiracy to do harm ...

Obama Spoils System Champ

A USA Today report that "Nearly a year after he was elected on a pledge to change business-as-usual in Washington, Obama also has taken a cue from his predecessors and appointed fundraisers to coveted ambassadorships" and in fact has done so at "a rate higher than any president in more than four decades" combined with  story in The Hill that ...

Gates and Crowley Beer Summit II

Professor Henry Louis Gates and Sergeant James Crowley apparently enjoyed their beer summit with the president so much that they've decided to have another round.  Minus the president. In a setting a tad less formal, with no president or national press on hand, the Harvard professor and the Cambridge cop at the heart of last summer’s White House “beer summit” met ...

Recession Over, Obama Takes Credit

As widely expected, the Powers That Be have declared the recession  over, while cautioning that the economy still has a long way to go.  And, of course, the Obama administration is crediting its stimulus packages for the good news. It might not feel like it to most voters, but the U.S. economy is growing again after a more than a year ...

Multiple Choice: Economics

The New York Times has an interesting multiple choice question regarding how to spend money to help stimulate the economy, If you wanted to help the economy and you had $14 billion to bestow on any group of people, which group would you choose: a) Teenagers and young adults, who have an 18 percent unemployment rate. b) All the middle-age long-term jobless who, ...

Late Night Sexual Harrassment

Nell Scovell, one of a handful of women who has ever worked as a comedy writer for David Letterman -- or any of the late night comic talk shows -- contends that an atmosphere of sexual harassment routinely exists on those shows: Without naming names or digging up decades-old dirt, let’s address the pertinent questions. Did Dave hit on me? No. ...

The Cost of Empire

Last week, Congress approved the 2010 Defense Authorization Bill, with costs totalling to a whopping $680 billion. And as Christopher Preble points out, that's not all:The defense bill represents only part of our military spending. The appropriations bill moving through Congress governing veterans affairs, military construction and other agencies totals $133 billion, while the massive Department of Homeland Security ...

Obama Ties Bush on Golf

Interesting-if-true fact from Patrick Gavin:  President Obama has already played as many rounds of golf after nine months in office as President George W. Bush did in eight years. President Barack Obama has only been in office for just over nine months, but he's already hit the links as much as President Bush did in over two years. CBS' Mark Knoller — ...

Prosecutors Investigate Innocence Project Students

A rather bizarre case in Illinois -- even by the standards of that state. For more than a decade, classes of students at Northwestern University’s journalism school have been scrutinizing the work of prosecutors and the police. The investigations into old crimes, as part of the Medill Innocence Project, have helped lead to the release of 11 inmates, the project’s director ...

White Cities

White elites, shockingly, seem to enjoy cities where the culture is dominated by white elites. Aaron Renn breaks the news. Among the media, academia and within planning circles, there’s a generally standing answer to the question of what cities are the best, the most progressive and best role models for small and mid-sized cities. The standard list includes Portland, Seattle, Austin, ...

Roger Ailes for President?!

Topping Memeorandum is Mike Allen's wild speculation for Politico about a presidential run by Roger Ailes. Friends and associates are encouraging Fox News chief Roger Ailes to jump into the political arena for real by running for president in 2012, top sources tell POLITICO. "Ailes knows how to frame an issue better than anybody, and that's what we need now," says one ...

D.C. Marriage Rate Lowest in U.S.

Tyler Cowen points me to an interesting discussion on the subject "Why So Few D.C. Residents Are Married." Washington City Paper's Amanda Hess cites a Pew survey finding that "Only 23 percent of women and 28 percent of men and in D.C. are married, compared to 48 and 52 percent nationwide. The rates in D.C. are so low that they ...

Obama Leads 2012 Opponents

Taegan Goddard links a Public Policy Polling survey [PDF] showing that President Obama would have beaten the most commonly mentioned Republican hopefuls had the election been held from October 16th to 19th and opened to registered voters.  (I hasten to add, it wasn't.) In fact, according to the survey, "Obama leads Mike Huckabee 47-43, Mitt Romney 48-40, Sarah Palin 52-40, and ...