Author Archive | David Bernstein

During the Bush years, we occasionally heard that liberals who had long been skeptical of federalism and limited government were gaining new appreciation for these concepts. My suspicion was that this “new apprecitation” would last only as long as the Republicans controlled the government. So, it’s not surprising to read this: Amanda Shanor, president of […]

How many Brandeis professors will volunteer to take a 1% pay cut to help save two or three staffers’ jobs?

What a cruel, heartless cop, right? That’s the way the story is written. But wait. If you read the story carefully, when the cop pulled the husband over, he was attending to a car in the breakdown lane, where the husband was driving illegally (albeit allegedly with the permission of cops he encountered previously). In […]

We have a very nice two-bedroom, furnished, in-law suite with all the amenities, and no in-laws or other guests in January. We live a ten minute walk from the Pentagon City metro, which is 2 metro stops from D.C., within walking distance of three malls and many restaurants. We’re willing to consider offers of a […]

Krugman: But I think it

I recently picked up Maria Balinska’s new book from Yale University Press, “The Bagel: The Surprising History of a Modest Bread.” I was hoping that the book would shed some light on the baking industry in early 20th-century New York City, given my interest in Lochner v. New York. The book was only marginally helpful […]

With gas prices plunging, the Obama team is still promising to have the government “invest” in green fuel technologies. What a recipe for wasting money! For all the obvious reasons, the odds that government will “invest” wisely are slim to none. If green technologies must be invested in (and I think there is a sound […]

According to Wikipedia, Americans consumed 138 billion gallons of gasoline in 2006. Now that gas is down about $2 a gallon, that puts $276 billion extra in the hands of consumers relative to what was expected earlier this year. Combine that with reductions in the price of home heating oil, plus reductions in the price […]

It’s been widely reported that Countrywide Mortgage had a special VIP program that provided various discounts to well-connected elites who could help Countrywide politically, most famously Sen. Christopher Dodd. Is anyone else reminded of that horrible [IMHO] Sylvester Stallone movie Cop Land, about a town full of corrupt police officers, who were accomplices to all […]

No, given the social construction of race, he’s clearly the first. But, here’s a trivia question: which 20th-century president was “accused” of having recent black ancestry, responded to those rumors with a joke that he wouldn’t be surprised if some of his ancestors went “over the fence,” and had a much better civil rights record […]

[NOTE: Given that we probably have a lot of new visitors to this blog, I thought I’d add this preface linking to some of my other posts about tendentious, dishonest uses of the word Likudnik, a pet peeve of mine. Start with this one. FWIW, I sometimes get called a “Likudnik,” even though I have […]

A reader in the comments: Consider the ratio of winners’ votes to runners’-up votes in the last 25 Presidential elections. Obama won a clear victory with a ratio of 1.13 over McCain. (63.0 / 55.8 = 1.13) But by any reasonable historical standard, this election was actually fairly close. The average over the last 25 […]

Democrats have fifty-six seats, Republicans forty. With all or almost all (99% in Alaska) the votes counted, if current totals hold after recounts and whatnot, the Republicans get three more (Georgia, Minnesota, and believe it or not, Ted Stevens’s seat in Alaska). Oregon only has about 3/4 reporting, with the Republican ahead slightly, and Portland […]

Much as I didn’t want Obama to win on ideological grounds, I am nonetheless thrilled that American voters elected the first black president. I’ve spent a fair chunk of the last two decades writing about post-Civil War African-American history (in the context of constitutional history, e.g.), a history replete with segregation, lynchings, intimidation, humiliation, exclusion […]

Here’s something I think the vast majority of Republicans/conservatives/libertarians can agree on: holding Obama to this pledge, made to the American public during the third debate: what I’ve done throughout this campaign is to propose a net spending cut…. What I want to emphasize … is that I have been a strong proponent of pay-as- […]