Category Archives: Politics
Supreme Court puts Obama’s Clean Power Plan on hold
On February 9, the Supreme Court issued a “stay” blocking implementation of the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan rules that aim to cut CO2 emissions from the nation’s power plants until challenges to the regulations can be heard by the … Continue reading
Unsolicited reflections on 2015
Back at the beginning of last year, I wrote a post Cautious Optimism for 2015. My overall point was about focusing on long term trends as a remedy for becoming overwhelmed by the incessant drumbeat of bad news. Was I … Continue reading
King v. Burwell: Everyone’s A Winner
(Photo: http://www.supremecourt.gov) Yesterday morning the United States Supreme Court handed down its decision in King v. Burwell. This case is about tax credits granted under the Affordable Care Act (ACA, a.k.a. Obamacare) to low income individuals to help them pay … Continue reading
Cautious Optimism for 2015
2014 was a tumultuous year filled with tragedy, disaster and violence. Each new crisis dominated the headlines only to be quickly elbowed aside by the next: ISIS, Gaza, Ukraine, Ferguson, Malaysia 370, AirAsia 8501, Boko Haram school kidnapping, Peshawar school … Continue reading
25 years after the Velvet Revolution, Czechs “red card” their president
Perhaps democracy has been slow to take root in some ex-Communist countries, but today, on the 25th anniversary of the start of the Velvet Revolution, it seems to be alive and kicking in the Czech Republic. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/18/world/europe/-reverently-and-defiantly-czechs-honor-their-revolutions-anniversary.html?_r=0
For Whom The Wall Fell
On the heels of the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, here’s a sobering post from economist Branko Milanovic of the City University of New York. He tries to determine which countries have successfully transitioned from communism … Continue reading
The Hobby Lobby Decision
In its June 30, 2014 decision in the case Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the Supreme Court ruled for the first time in US legal history that a closely held for-profit corporation is entitled to a religious exemption from following a US … Continue reading
Riley v. California (with a Primer on Reading Supreme Court Decisions)
In this post I’m going to take a break from book reviews and look at the recent Supreme Court decision in the Riley v. California case. (In future posts, I may deal with other cases.) Riley v. California is a … Continue reading
Book Review: The Ideas That Conquered the World
The Ideas That Conquered the World By Michael Mandelbaum PublicAffairs, New York, NY, 2002 The Ideas That Conquered the World was published with some fanfare in 2002, in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9/11. I can’t remember how … Continue reading
Coup in Egypt
What happened in Egypt yesterday is deeply disturbing. Whenever a democratically elected government, however rotten or reviled, is overthrown by a military coup, it’s a setback for the country and for democracy. The world cheered when the Mubarak regime was … Continue reading
Unsolicited Feedback 