Category Archives: Commentary

All written commentary.

Crimea: What do you really think we can do about it?

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I noticed a prominent economist tweeted this the other day, reacting to the Russian occupation of Crimea: “Obama vows no tangible help Whatever happened to Democrats like Truman and Kennedy.”

This would be Truman whose Berlin Airlift occurred in a world where the U.S. was the only nuclear-armed country… and then he managed to get us stuck in Korea. And Kennedy narrowly managed to avoid getting everyone nuked over Cuba and our interference there (including his own)… but then still got us stuck in Vietnam.

So, I don’t know, maybe Obama’s handling this crisis pretty ok?

Look, this isn’t a knock against the person who tweeted that. It’s a pretty common frustration right now. I just happened to spot that particular expression of it. It’s a tense and complicated situation over there right now. There’s probably not much we can do. The U.S. isn’t omnipotent. Nor is Russia powerless before us.

Major miscalculations and underestimations following smaller disputes a century ago this year, not far from the Black Sea, brought Europe and later the United States into the devastating first world war. Let’s not repeat that. When major powers go head to head, it’s best to err on the side of doing less rather than making a catastrophic error the world will not forgive us for. And in the nuclear age, there might not be a world left anyway, after a bad call.
crimea-ukraine

Maybe it’s time to calm down a bit and not fall into The Onion’s pointed characterization: “Ukrainian-Russian Tensions Dividing U.S. Citizens Along Ignorant, Apathetic Lines”

Pres. Obama reacts to dumbest heckling yet

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This is amazing. During a speech this past Friday to the Democratic National Committee, a heckler yelled “Tell us about your plans for nuclear war in Russia” and President Obama made a (very valid) face:
obama-nuclear-heckle-reaction

Yes, this is how we all react to people saying supremely foolish nonsense like that, but it’s great to see the President of the United States get to react like that, too. Here’s the full clip CNN posted:

obama-reaction-still
h/t

Irresponsible lending pressure? Really?

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new-york-stock-exchange-200Guest post by Chris Chinn. You can follow him on Twitter @yeloson.

In the November/December 2013 issue of Foreign Affairs, there’s an article by entitled “Why Banking Systems Succeed — And Fail
The Politics Behind Financial Institutions”.

The essay starts on obvious and solid ground — that the political interests of varying groups in any society shapes how its banking policies are made — but along the way drops out the culpability of the banks in the 2007/2008 crisis. Instead they place the blame on the government regulations and special interest groups in as the primary driving force in the bank collapse, while pretending there wasn’t a massive profit incentive for the banks in the whole process.

In other words, in their view, the fault for the collapse lies with regulations designed to make banks consider low-income people for financing, rather than with the trading around of mortgages.

Let’s review what’s wrong with this claim and what really happened:
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Does Ken Buck dropping Senate bid mean much?

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In a changeup that The Atlantic’s Molly Ball argued is “definitive proof” (as the headline writers put it anyway) that the Republican Party establishment is “getting their act together” finally against the tea party insurgents, 2010 US Senate nominee Ken Buck has dropped out of this year’s Colorado Senate primary in favor of seeking the seat of U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner, who just announced he would seek the Senate seat himself. Buck, as previously covered here, is a very conservative (and very loathsome) Republican, who was the perceived frontrunner for the 2014 nomination.

I think it’s probably very premature to drop the victory balloons for Gardner, since even if nominated he’s still got an uphill battle against incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Udall, but I can see Ball’s point. If rock-solid tea party champion Ken Buck — who was already jeopardizing GOP chances of a pickup once again — can be persuaded to drop out in favor of Gardner, that would seem to be a worrying sign for Democrats who have been counting on Republicans to shoot themselves in the foot (as discussed on AFD Episode 74 this week) as the core strategy for retaining tough-to-hold seats in the Senate.

Competitive and non-competitive 2014 Senate races. (Credit: Orser67 - Wikipedia) Competitive and non-competitive 2014 Senate races. (Credit: Orser67 – Wikipedia)

That said, the examples given in The Atlantic article of establishment Republicans outmaneuvering right-wing challenges this year were in non-battleground Senate races: Texas and Wyoming, which Democrats weren’t going to win anyway this year.

Other examples we’ve seen this year like Virginia Republicans getting behind Ed Gillespie won’t prove much of anything since the Democrats will still win handily there. So I think it’s still too early to be writing trend pieces on this idea.
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Supreme Court still chipping away at Right to Counsel

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The U.S. Supreme Court issued two more bad rulings today. One of them involved procedures for obtaining legal counsel. Chief Justice Roberts seemed really bummed out (see this detailed analysis from The Atlantic’s Andrew Cohen) that the Court’s ruling — on freezing assets of defendants before trial — might make it harder for super-wealthy suspected criminals to hire the best representation. But as Cohen observes, Roberts doesn’t seem too bothered by the fact that the ruling has little bearing on people who can’t afford the best anyway — a problem he has helped exacerbate recently, as I discussed in depth in December.

Doge Care.gov?

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I’ve really started getting a kick out of the fun social media teams in some of the cabinet departments and Federal agencies. h/t to @radlein on Twitter for catching this official Doge-based posting by the Dept. of Health and Human Services and bringing it into my timeline

dogecare

Now if we were to get health insurers to accept DogeCoin as a currency, would that bring us one step closer to former Nevada U.S. Senate Candidate Sue Lowden’s dream of people being able to barter chickens for health care — or is it still too abstract and non-animal-based?

Backlash mounts on Spanish abortion rollback

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spainBill and I have already discussed Spain’s proposed abortion law, the Ley Gallardón, which would restrict abortion in Spain to cases of rape or long-term harm to the mother.

Opponents of the proposal have created a satirical website called “Bebés de contenedor” (“Dumpster babies”) advertising a fake startup that connects hopeful adoptive parents with the babies that will be abandoned because of restricted abortion rights.

The site states (all translations in this post are my own):
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