I think it’s more a matter of strategic panic. Democrats genuinely wanted a farther left judge, ACB will do things they oppose, so the strategy is to turn the panic dial to 11 on every nominee, even as some are more right-wing than others. Same deal with elections rules.
Republicans do the same thing, but not in the same areas.
One thing that has mitigated the effects of Trump’s picks is that when Gorsuch moderates he does it by being rigid, and when Kavanaugh moderates he does it by being flexible.
You can see this in the Bostock decision, where Gorsuch picks the law apart word by word and Kavanaugh is basically like “come on, that’s not what this means.” Sometimes the same split cuts the other way, like this last ACA decision.
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Good! Problems in the Mideast should be problems for the US to the smallest extent possible. wsj.com/articles/u-s-m…
The Mideast is not nearly as “strategic” as people make it out to be, or as it used to be.
I am not an isolationist. I am very concerned about China and, to a lesser extent, Russia. Part of having a robust international strategy is knowing where *not* to expend so much capital, and we are way overweighted to Mideast concerns.
I don't love all of ProPublica's analysis on billionaire taxes, but the core true point is too much of the wealthiest Americans' income isn't showing up on tax returns. We can fix that, and Joe Biden is focused on closing two loopholes that would do so. businessinsider.com/propublicas-bi…
We should repeal rules that let you avoid tax on gains by holding assets until you die, and stop letting rich people double-deduct charitable donations. And if you do those things, you can set higher capital gains tax rates and still stop avoidance. businessinsider.com/propublicas-bi…
The charitable deduction thing is a little headache-inducing to understand, but the short version is, if you give away appreciated stock instead of cash, you effectively get to deduct the unrealized gain twice. It makes no sense, and we can change it. businessinsider.com/propublicas-bi…
I talked to my former colleagues at New York Magazine about how I’m filling out my mayoral ranked choice ballot. Read it (along with many others’) here: curbed.com/2021/06/nyc-ra…
Also, Joe Lhota is a Democrat now? 👀
I wrote at greater length for Insider this weekend about what I like so
much about why I like Kathryn Garcia and why I, apparently like Joe Lhota, prefer her for mayor. businessinsider.com/kathryn-garcia…
Twice as likely to test positive if tested, but also nearly three times less to get tested. The way Axios presents these data is misleading. The meaning is not obvious; many COVID cases were never tested/confirmed, so I wouldn’t infer mask wearers *more* likely to get COVID.
This piece needs to be fixed, the text doesn’t match the chart.
Of course there’s all sorts of other confounds. Maybe one reason people wore masks regularly outside the home is they had a higher baseline level of COVID exposure. Mask wearers also may have been more careful in general. You can’t really infer from observations like this.