David > Recent Status Updates

I like natural history books that tell the story of discovery, not just the result -- and this is such a one.

It would be hard to overestimate the impact of Reagan's lowering of the unearned income rate (capital gains) to 20% and the top tax rate from 70% to 28%. It freed up a shitload of money for the rich to *further* increase their advantages.

Seems like Biden was a manic-depressive without the depressive -- which maybe is a blessing?

A cynical bit of Irish counsel: "Fuck 'em, all but six -- you need pallbearers."

More about Gary Hart and Donna Rice. Are there any accusations of infidelity about anyone that didn't turn out to be true? Seriously -- I wonder!

Does it count as irony that Gary Hart is still married to the same woman he was married to when the Donna Rice affair killed his presidential candidacy? I wonder whether there will ever be presidents with "open" marriages -- Gingrich is available... in more ways than one.

Gary Hart and Donna Rice. Could a candidate and then president get away with an extramarital affair? Bill Clinton sort of did -- but not really: he paid a heavy price.

George H.W. Bush debated an empty chair 50 years before Clint Eastwood did. Actually, Bush went up against a recording of his opponent for the Senate.

From Birchers to Birthers, the GOP has a paranoid, anti-government, extremist lineage that goes way back.

"Sure, the path to professorship was wider than the dog track to personal salvation... still, it was not the grand boulevard of life."

It's hard to imagine Joe Biden struggling with a stuttering problem.

Sometimes as I'm reading a book I think, this book doesn't need to be *half* as good as it is. This is that kind of book.

"If they thought well of him [Bush], then, they were friends."

I always figured people (not I) voted for Bush out of loyalty to Reagan. If it were possible to convert friends or friendliness to votes, possibly Bush would have won a 2nd term. No one ever though of Bush Jr, as *friendly*, did they?

To Ayatollah Khomeini from Ronald Reagan: a cake, a Bible and a shipment of weapons.

"It was an animal thing, like a tail wagging, wagging his whole ass back and forth. He wanted to be their friend" (on George H.W. Bush).

Amazing. Book was written a decade before W became president, and it starts out with his out-shining his VP father -- as a colossal asshole.

Like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly, Scalia made his "transformation from conservative intellectual to right-wing crank."

"...the Thomases chose to live in a bubble where everyone believed Thomas had told the truth in 1991." (That would almost make an ideal first sentence for a novel.)

Amazing how *all of a sudden* the 2nd Amendment became about individual gun ownership (not militias), and the individual mandate for health insurance became allegedly unconstitutional. Some ideas get a lot of professional promotional help.

Seems like gun control (not being for it) is as much a litmus test for justices as Roe v Wade.

Interesting: Lindsey Graham (of all people) was the one Republican to vote for Sotomayor.

"Originalism... [is] just another way for justices to achieve their political goals."

1972 GOP platform supported gun control, 1976 GOP platform opposed it. What happened?

Seems like the real split is not between liberalism and conservatism but between liberalism and authoritarianism.

"For Roberts, the law, ultimately, was all about winning." That's a damning characterization of a Supreme Court justice.

"Where our enemies will strike us is predictable: it's where we least expect them to."

"In politics... truth enjoy's no privileged status...."

Don't infer veracity from the confidence of a forecast.

The efficient market hypothesis seems simple-minded and naive. When you're not trading with your own money your motives and rewards are going to be different than what the hypothesis presumes.