Mark Kleiman

The Constitution, Article VI:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution.

Congressman Zach Wamp (R-TN):

The basic flaw in libertarian reasoning is its neglect of all the ways freedom can be threatened by private (including corporate) action, rather than public action. There is no doubt a fine essay to be written on that topic; probably someone has written it.

But to make an actual political...

Crime, even after a decade of falling crime rates, remains a huge problem, and a major barrier to improving conditions in poor neighborhoods. Mass incarceration -- one American adult in 100 is now behind bars -- constitutes a problem in its own right. The challenge we face is how to...

Andrew Sullivan speaks for many when he writes, "One Last Thing, Mr. President: If you believe it is wrong to fire people from their jobs solely because they are gay, as you said Saturday night, stop doing it."  But in order to "stop doing it" immediately, the president would have to...

E. coli outbreaks in ground beef aren't acts of God.  They're the products of corporate and governmental decision-making.  Time for some righteous anger from the President.

At one level, all policy analysis starts with benefit-cost analysis: on what basis could one choose among option except their advantages (benefits) and their disadvantages (costs)?

That makes it puzzling, at first blush, that benefit-cost analysis should be controversial; when it comes to environmental and safety regulation, benefit-cost is beloved...

I saw it this afternoon. Six hours after the end of the show, I'm still (1) going over the details in my mind and (2) tearing up. I'm pretty sure I've never cried over a movie before, but "UP" isn't a movie; it's a myth. Don't think "Harry Potter"; think...

Another Federal district court has ruled that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act protects the worship of the American branches of Brazilian churches that make sacramental use of a "tea" that contains DMT, a Schedule I controlled substance.
Analysis and a link to Judge Panner's opinion here.

The...

The incoming Obama administration confronts the problem of how to deal with the criminal (by domestic as well as international law) infliction of torture by elements of the United States government, with authority coming from the very top, and not merely on important terrorists but on random innocent victims.

While...

Trackers for the Judy Feder campaign trying to ask a question of Congressman Frank Wolf are assaulted and beaten by Wolf's people one of them using a cane, which in most states counts as a deadly weapon, making a simple A&B into aggravated assault, a felony.

NEADS Inc. is a non-profit that trains service dogs. One of its current programs is called Canines for Combat Veterans. The dogs can perform amazing feats, including untying someone's shoelaces and pulling off his shoes. They can also help people walk by pulling them forward.

NEADS...

Pass the tinfoil:

* The State Department gave Russia the green light to go into South Ossetia if Georgia made a big move in South Ossetia, thinking that the Russians had made an implied commitment to stay out of Georgia proper. But State never told the Georgian government

* Knowing...

What do you get if you cross an influence-peddler with a war profiteer? According to Lindsay Beyerstein of Majikthise, you get John McCain's senior foreign policy adviser.

It's about as ugly a story as you can imagine, with Randy Scheunemann's cronies bragging to potential investors that his role...

No, that's not a headline you can expect to read. But it's the truth.

Here's the sequence:

Carly Fiorina says that McCain might raise taxes on rich folks as part of a Social Security deal.

Grover Norquist, speaking as the Grand Inquisitioner of the anti-taxers, more or less...

I tend to sympathize with the view that professors ought to encourage their students to think for themselves rather than encouraging them to agree with the professors. And of course the idea that the University of Colorado needs a Professor of Conservatism is laughable, though the prejudice underlying that idea...

KBR Machinery Company had the Army over a barrel: if the Army refused to pay KBR's inflated bills (more than $1B in unjustified costs), KBR threatened to shut off payments to its subcontractors, which in turn would stop feeding the army in Iraq.

Of course, the fact that...

John McCain gave an interview to Newsweek and screwed the pooch twice, which may be a single-interview record.

John Cole caught the first one.

Background: McCain in Kenner, Louisiana (falsely advertised as New Orleans) just this past Tuesday night:

Senator Clinton has earned great respect for her tenacity...

I'm glad the NYT public editor called out the NYT op-ed editor on the Luttwak "Obama is a Muslim apostate" nonsense. Not only was the piece a transparent exercise in religious bigotry, it was wrong. And there's no excuse for the Times' refusal to run a rebuttal...