Author Archive | David Bernstein

You have to read the article carefully to figure this out, but what the story ultimately reveals is that Palin (a) billed the state for most expenses allowed by law, including per diem when she stayed in her own home (her “duty station” was the state capitol of Juneau) in Wasilla; (b) didn’t bill the […]

As I understand it, the common and preferred shareholders are basically being wiped out, but the government is backing Fannie and Freddie’s existing debt, the value of which therefore rose. So here’s my question: if Fannie and Freddie were heading for bankruptcy but for the government’s intervention, why didn’t the Treasury Department bargain hard with […]

I usually skip watching political conventions entirely, given that they are just staged political propaganda for each party, providing a forum for politicians on each side to present rhetoric that mostly ranges from the dishonest to the insipid, as American political rhetoric usually does. (It’s especially not surprising to find such rhetoric at a convention, […]

The small Israeli flag visible in Gov. Palin’s office window has been the subject of much speculation. I’ve even seen allegations in the blogosphere that the flag was photoshopped into a video to appease pro-Israel voters who never heard of Palin. An Israeli-American documentary filmmaker who filmed Palin for several days a few months ago […]

I was driving my baby daughter Eden to her four-month doctor appointment this morning, when I heard reporter Anne Korblut of the Washington Post on The Diane Rehm show defending the media’s coverage of Sarah Palin and her family. She said something along the lines of, “If Barack Obama had a four-month-old special needs baby, […]

The Republicans and Democrats are both “in power,” obviously, given that the Republicans control the White House, but the Democrats control the House and Senate. With that in mind, here’s the New York Times on McCain: The nominee’s friend described him as a “restless reformer who will clean up Washington.” His defeated rival described him […]

Even though studies consistently show that conservative evangelical Christians are no more likely to be anti-Semitic than others (the ADL, for example, notes based on years of study that neither religion nor political ideology drive anti-Semitism, and here notes more specifically that “ADL polls on anti-Semitism in America show no greater inclination of Evangelical Christians […]

here are three things I’d keep quiet about with regard to Sarah Palin. (1) How can she do her job as vice-president and take care of her kids? Which leads to the question, how can Obama do the much more demanding job of president and take care of his kids? (2) What makes anyone think […]

I’ve posted my essay “Freedom of Contract” for downloading on SSRN. The abstract reads: “This essay provides a concise overview of the history of the constitutional status of freedom of contract in the United States, with particular attention to the rise and fall of the ‘”liberty of contract’ doctrine in the early 20th century.”

N.Y. Times: In interviews, many women, citing their own difficulties with less demanding jobs, said it would be impossible for Ms. Palin to succeed both at motherhood and in the nation’s second-highest elected position at once. “You can juggle a BlackBerry and a breast pump in a lot of jobs, but not in the vice […]

Miami Herald: “Palin was a supporter of [MSNBC analyst] Pat Buchanan, a right-winger or as many Jews call him: a Nazi sympathizer,” Obama spokesman Mark Bubriski wrote in an email. To recapitulate previous posts, Palin publicly supported Steve Forbes, not Pat Buchanan in 2000. Pat Buchanan has claimed that Palin attended a fundraiser for him […]

So says Paul Krugman: “What we really need is a government that works, because it’s run by people who understand that sometimes government is the solution, after all. And that seems to be something undreamed of in either Mr. Bush’s or Mr. McCain’s philosophy.” After eight years of “no child left behind,” Medicare expansion, aid […]

Some recent correspondence I had with a colleague about Chinese immigration to the U.S. in the 19th century prompted this post. There has been some great historical work on the Chinese immigrants in the last few decades, but it’s difficult to overcome the myths propagated for decades by labor unions and their academic apologists. My […]

comes a “gem.” I find Anti-Israel Blogger Philip Weiss morbidly interesting, and I occasionally happen upon his blog. Weiss finds his own Jewish background alternatively suffocating and infuriating, and yet can’t seem to stop talking about it, and about how he’s trying to overcome it. [Recent example: “My experience of Jewish life is that it’s […]

July 17, 1999: AP reports on Pat Buchanan visit to Wasilla, AK. The reporter notes that “among those sporting Buchanan buttons were Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin and state Sen. Jerry Ward, R-Anchorage.” July 26, 1999, letter to the editor of the Anchorage Daily News by Sarah Palin: As mayor of Wasilla, I am proud to […]