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Debate in California about the funding cuts for higher education has become quite perplexing, partly because some of the parties are not thinking very clearly about it, partly because the question is fairly complicated, partly because the politics of California budgeting have become so pathological. In response to relentless nagging from David Schutz (well, he [...]
Archive for the ‘Political Science’ Category
November 25th, 2009
Category: California Politics, Education policy, Policy Analysis, Policy briefs, Political Science, Politics and Leadership
June 19th, 2009
Category: 2009 Democratic Agenda, Democrats in Congress, Health Care, Income distribution, Political Science
$1.9 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy pass easily; $1.6 trillion for health care leads to panic. Discuss.
November 21st, 2008
Category: Political Science
If reports are to be believed, Hillary Clinton will accept President-elect Obama’s offer as Secretary of State. If the Washington Post is to be believed, Bill Richardson is actively seeking, and Obama is actively considering him, for Secretary of Commerce.
For those concerned about the separation of powers, or more accurately, the balance of powers, [...]
October 12th, 2008
Category: Political Science, Woolgathering
I doubt that I’d thought about William Proxmire in years, until Mark brought him up recently. And the McCain connection then seemed obvious. Now, as is always comforting, obviousness is validated by research:
Keith T. Poole, a professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego who studies the ideological voting [...]
June 30th, 2008
Category: Political Science
Blue Blogistan is having a good laugh over the Republican Senate nominee in Montana, Bob Kelleher, who is a former Independent, and Green, and Democrat, 84 years old, and has been running with no success under the Big Sky literally for decades now. Fair enough. But people really seem to think Kelleher’s main [...]
April 9th, 2008
The protesters against the Olympic torch relay are right.
January 2nd, 2008
Category: Political Science
Representative Tom Lantos has decided to retire because of an esophageal cancer diagnosis. I believe him, although the impending challenge by former state Senator Jackie Speier, who has been an effective legislator and deserves support, might also have had something to do with it.
I have long liked Lantos, who is a Holocaust survivor, and [...]
September 21st, 2007
Category: Political Science
All along the blue blogosphere, the cries ring out for Harry Reid’s head–or all the Senate Democrats. And it has been a pretty bad couple of days if you’re a progressive. In the last week, the putatively Democratic Senate has:
1) Failed to break a GOP filibuster on a bill restoring habeas corpus;
2) [...]
February 1st, 2007
Category: Political Science
The American Jewish Committee accuses, among others, Tony Judt, of being anti-semitic; Judt, among others, responds that the AJC, is cynically trying to suppress genuine debate on the Middle East.
Who’s right? Neither of them, although on the merits the AJC has the better of the argument.
Judt got into hot water on this issue three [...]
January 11th, 2007
What if Congress refuses to appropriate money for the surge and the Dear Leader just ignores it?
I realize that this question may sound flip, but given the Bush Administration’s desire for a permanent constitutional crisis, I think that it might be worth wargaming right now. The conversation now in Left Blogistan is whether Congress [...]
