Work and worth: Should a hedge-fund manager really be making $2.3 billion a year? What someone is paid has little or no relationship to what their work is worth to society. Does anyone seriously believe hedge-fund mogul Steven A. Cohen is worth the $2.3 billion he raked in last year, despite being slapped with a $1.8 billion fine…
The one number that will decide this year’s election What will be the deciding factor in this year’s elections? Will it be Obamacare? The chaos erupting across the globe? The president’s approval rating? Will it be single women voters, Hispanics, young people? Mike Podhorzer crunched the numbers and found there’s one factor that, with eerie consistency, explains…
BOOM: The historic proof that Obamacare foes are dead wrong on subsidies The story of whether Congress ever intended to limit Obamacare subsidies to state-based exchanges begins and ends with the Congressional Budget Office. And what it reveals about the latest legal threat to Obamacare dramatically undercuts the arguments against the law. No one person or…
The most effective member of Congress One of the more idiotic beltway tropes is the old “both sides do it” nonsense, used most often by timorous journalists who are afraid of crazed conservatives calling them liberal if they describe what conservatives are actually doing. Last Wednesday provided a perfect example, with this charmingly naive little piece by…
House lawsuit doesn’t stop Obama executive orders The House’s vote to sue President Barack Obama for allegedly abusing his executive authority won’t dissuade him from keeping up his executive action drive, administration officials said Thursday as they discussed the latest step in the president’s “pen and phone” campaign to evade congressional gridlock. Obama’s latest move is…
McDonald’s ruling could open door for unions The general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board ruled Tuesday that McDonald’s could be held jointly liable for labor and wage violations by its franchise operators—a decision that, if upheld, would disrupt longtime practices in the fast-food industry and ease the way for unionizing nationwide. Business groups called…
State Senate races: Republicans are dishing dirt through the mails Republicans have signaled early, in two key State Senate races, that they are ready to go negative with crude attack mailings with November’s election day still 99 days away. The stakes, in what’s expected to be a multimillion-dollar battle, are big scale. Voters in Bellingham and…
Obama campaign vets: Pay us $5,000 to learn—and work on a campaign Two top veterans of President Obama’s campaigns are asking political campaigners to pay $5,000 per person for the chance to learn their secrets and then work for five weeks in an unpaid campaign job somewhere in America. Democratic operatives and progressive activists are questioning…
People could be cut off from health insurance, and Republicans are cheering openly about it If you’re high-fiving over things getting worse for working-class families, you’re doing it wrong. But that’s exactly the position Republican operatives and pundits found themselves in this week. On Tuesday, a D.C. Circuit Court panel ruled in the case of Halbig v. Burwell that…
‘Republicans aren’t good at ground games in Alaska. That’s their weakness’ Art Hackney has more than three decades of strategizing for Republican election campaigns in Alaska under his belt. And he’s rarely been so frustrated. From an office lined with awards for punchy political campaigns on behalf of senators, congressmen, and governors, Hackney has watched the…