| Title | Author | Date | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Republicans have extra barricades ready, just in case John Bolton tries to speak With the rules set out by Mitch McConnell, Republicans will be able to vote to dismiss the impeachment outright. And if that doesn’t pass, they can vote to pre-ban all witnesses and documents. And if that doesn’t pass, they can depose every witness in... |
Mark Sumner | 01/21/2020 | 94 |
| Trump's attorneys argue that impeachment itself is no longer legal in superpower America Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s proposal on procedures for the impeachment trial of Donald Trump sets up an obstacle course designed to exclude damaging evidence and confine discussion of Trump’s crimes to the darkest hours of the night. But... |
Mark Sumner | 01/21/2020 | 207 |
| McConnell‘s rules for the impeachment trial are a cover-up wrapped in obstruction Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has delivered his resolution proposing the rules by which Donald Trump’s impeachment trial will be conducted. And it’s not as bad as many expected—it’s far worse. McConnell has not only set up Trump to... |
Mark Sumner | 01/21/2020 | 110 |
| Monday night owls: New Texas fossil-fuel projects could add hugely to greenhouse gas emissions Justin Miller at the Texas Observer writes—As Fossil Fuel Industry Invests Billions in New Texas Facilities, it Could Unleash a Huge Emissions Bomb: A hulking new $10 billion ethane cracker near Corpus Christi set for completion by 2022. A trio of... |
Meteor Blades | 01/20/2020 | 46 |
| Year over year, inflation-adjusted wages rose 0% in 2019. 51% of workers got no raises Unemployment is the lowest it has been in 50 years. Economic expansion since the Great Recession ended has been going on for 126 consecutive months, and net gains in job growth have been going on ... |
Meteor Blades | 01/20/2020 | 42 |
| FBI tweets its 'honors' to Dr. King with zero mention of its attacks on him As a target of the FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program (CoIntelPro), I think the bureau would have been wiser to keep its Twitter trap shut on this day set aside to remember the wisdom, courage, and relentless intersectional activism of Martin Luther... |
Meteor Blades | 01/20/2020 | 89 |
| Will three gun-reform bills passed by the Virginia Senate spark right-wing violence at rally today? Last Monday, the Virginia Senate Judiciary Committee sent three gun reform measures to the full state Senate, where on Thursday, they were passed by that Democrat-controlled body. Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam ordered a... |
Meteor Blades | 01/20/2020 | 139 |
| Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: Lev Parnas is not a distraction, he's central to how Trump operates WaPo:
‘Once this is over, we’ll be kings’: How Lev Parnas worked his way into Trump’s world — and now is rattling it
When Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway told CNN that “I don�� |
Greg Dworkin | 01/20/2020 | 271 |
| Sunday night owls open thread. IMF chief: inequality, climate crisis heading us to economic disaster Kristalina Georgieva, the managing director of International Monetary Fund, warned Friday at a speech at the Peterson Institute for International Economics that rising inequality and the ... |
Meteor Blades | 01/19/2020 | 73 |
| Sunday snippets: 60,000 expected at Vegas gun show; Trump's Iran lies; student workers owed millions • Arbitrator says U. of California, Berkeley, owes student workers $5 million in back pay: The United Auto Workers Local 2865, the union for student employees, filed a grievance three years ago claiming the university intentionally scheduled student... |
Meteor Blades | 01/19/2020 | 13 |
| Saturday night owls open thread. Joe Stiglitz: The truth about the 'booming' Trump economy Joe Stiglitz , the 2001 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics, is a professor at Columbia University and chief economist at the Roosevelt Institute. His most recent book is The Price of ... |
Meteor Blades | 01/18/2020 | 115 |
| Spotlight on green news & views: Altruistic parrots; 'On the Beach' for real in Australia This is the 627th edition of the Spotlight on Green News & Views (previously known as the Green Diary Rescue). Here is the January 11 edition. Inclusion of a story in the Spotlight does not necessarily indicate my agreement with or endorsement of... |
Meteor Blades | 01/18/2020 | 6 |
| Saturday snippets: Petition says WI regulators undercut solar; fact-checking Trump's 'biggest ever' • YouTube, despite pledge to do better, keeps promoting disinformation videos denying climate science: A new report by the global activist NGO Avaaz reveals that, despite YouTube’s pledge to combat misinformation, the popular video site owned by Google... |
Meteor Blades | 01/18/2020 | 18 |
| Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: Is it an impeachment trial or a reality tv show? FiveThirtyEight:
Trump May Be Even More Unpopular Than His Approval Rating Shows
Before the midterms, Trump’s favorability rating was statistically indistinguishable from Pence’s, and only ... |
Greg Dworkin | 01/18/2020 | 362 |
| Friday night owls open thread. David Brooks ignores the evidence to assert there is no class war Josh Bivens at Economic Policy Institute writes— Yes, David Brooks, there really is a class war : New York Times columnist David Brooks, in an article sub-titled “No, Virginia, there is no ... |
Meteor Blades | 01/17/2020 | 116 |
| Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: The gravitas of impeachment weighs on the Senate I’m something of a skeptic when it comes to seeing witnesses in the impeachment trial. I think the fix is in and they are running the Kavanaugh playbook (look reasonable and pretend to consider). |
Greg Dworkin | 01/17/2020 | 273 |
| Thursday night owls open thread: Excerpts from the February Harper's Index Here are some excerpts from the February edition of the Harper’s Index: Portion of South Koreans who say they would support North Korea in a war with Japan: ½ Estimated percentage of New York City apartments that receive at least one package every day:... |
Meteor Blades | 01/16/2020 | 40 |
| Abbreviated pundit round-up: Bloomberg wastes money on doomed campaign; will Roberts preside fairly? Michelle Cottle at The New York Times writes— Are Americans Ready to Elect a Woman President? They say they are. They’re not so sure about their neighbors, though:
Countless hours have ... |
Meteor Blades | 01/16/2020 | 178 |
| Wednesday night owls open thread: NJ legislators approve guaranteed severance pay Bryce Covert at The Nation writes— New Jersey Just Passed the First Law in the Nation to Guarantee Severance Pay After Mass Layoffs : O n Monday, the New Jersey legislature gave final approval ... |
Meteor Blades | 01/15/2020 | 74 |
| Entire Russian government to 'resign' so Vladimir Putin can alter the constitution to stay in power With Vladimir Putin’s time in office approaching the constitutionally mandated end, Russians might be thinking that they would soon see someone else as president. Except … no. No one was really thinking that. And on Wednesday, Russia learned how things... |
Mark Sumner | 01/15/2020 | 179 |
| Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: The stain of impeachment, the stench of corruption ABC:
The country now has a likely start date to the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. And Democrats likely have one Republican who will vote with them to call witnesses before ... |
Greg Dworkin | 01/15/2020 | 191 |
| Monday night owls open thread: Gov't puts non-violent climate activists on list with neo-Nazis Julia Conley at Common Dreams writes—US Government Lists Non-Violent 'Valve Turner' Climate Activists as Threat on Par With Murderous Neo-Nazis: Climate action advocates on Monday condemned reports that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has... |
Meteor Blades | 01/13/2020 | 57 |
| Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: Trump fiddles while the world burns Michael Tomasky /Daily Beast (if still behind a paywall, won’t be in a day):
How Trump's Parade of Lies Finally Caught Up With Him
Iran blinked, but Trump got no credit for it and for good ... |
Greg Dworkin | 01/13/2020 | 168 |