Author Archives: nickgb

I just stepped out on our porch for a second and the cats both raced in.  I started hearing something that sounded like Gollum up in one of our many pines, and when I got a good view I saw … Continue reading →

I’m sure this isn’t a new thought, though I think it’s original to my own mind.  What if, instead of background checks, we simply extend absolute liability to a private seller who doesn’t perform a background check on the buyer, … Continue reading →

Because we seem to be linking to him daily now, here’s a great summary by Paul Waldman of what the real scandal is in Benghazi: And then the White House called their bluff, because why not? It isn’t like there … Continue reading →

Paul Waldman crystallizes exactly why these “scandals” aren’t really going to amount to real damage to the administration: The trouble for Republicans is that one scandal reaches to the top levels of the administration, but it’s the one where no … Continue reading →

If Josh Marshall’s interpretation of this story is correct, and it seems correct to me, ABC News ought to be taking a huge credibility hit from this IRS story: Near the top of his original piece, Karl writes “White House emails … Continue reading →

Depressing news about taxes, unfortunately on a partisan level: The Internal Revenue Service inappropriately flagged conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status, a top IRS official said Friday. Organizations were singled out because they included … Continue reading →

Pino’s taken a break from flogging the Benghazi hearings to death in order to highlight this Economist chart that purports to show that money can buy happiness: Since Mr Easterlin first made his conjecture in 1974, economists’ views have evolved: … Continue reading →

Over at The Impolitic, a heart-wrenching update about that fertilizer plant in Texas: The West Fertilizer Co., scene of an explosion last month that killed 15 people and injured 200, carried only $1 million in liability insurance. Property damage alone … Continue reading →

Last month a federal court ruled that the FDA could not restrict the morning after pill based on age absent some evidence that showed that girls were somehow adversely affected by it more than older girls and women.  That was, … Continue reading →

The wonderful Fred Clark nails it: This is how it always begins. People claim that their idea of morality should replace what the Bible tells us. They start out by attacking a God-given institution blessed by scripture and eventually they wind up … Continue reading →

Blaming the president for massive failures in Congress is very en vogue at the moment: Obama is correct about the dysfunction, and the difficulty of passing even uncontroversial bills. But his stance was frustratingly passive, as if what happens in … Continue reading →

Jennifer Rubin’s daily excrement was too much to ignore today: It took less than 4 1/2 years of the Obama presidency for President George W. Bush to mount his comeback. While doing absolutely nothing on his own behalf (he’s been the … Continue reading →

Maureen Dowd manages to sink below even her already subterranean bar on Obama’s failure to get his gun bill: Unfortunately, he still has not learned how to govern. How is it that the president won the argument on gun safety … Continue reading →

I’m firmly in the camp of people who used to love John McCain until after 9/11, when he began a slide into being a GOP water-carrier on all manner of crazy.  It was nice, then, to see this pop up: … Continue reading →

Not to pick on Pino’s home state, it just happened to hit my radar twice this morning.  In the wake of the failed background check amendment, it’s especially bizarre that North Carolina is now on the verge of requiring background checks … Continue reading →

Ezra Klein today postulated that the gun vote “didn’t fail because a couple of red-state Democrats bolted, or even because too many senators are afraid of the National Rifle Association, or even because Sen. Pat Toomey couldn’t bring along more Republicans.” … Continue reading →

James Fallows, who is master of this domain as far as I’m concerned, pulled together a bunch more examples of the tripe I was talking about earlier regarding gun bill coverage.

Fresh off foolishly trusting CNN, I decided to see how the gun bill was being covered.  Remember, this was a bipartisan amendment that 90% of Americans are in favor of, but a handful of GOP senators have threatened a filibuster, … Continue reading →