Author Archives: Doug Badger

The Iran Nuclear Deal and the Price of Raising False Hopes

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US Secretary of State John Kerry shares a moment with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammed Javad Zarif, after concluding an agreement for relaxed sanctions and renewed talks. [Credit: BBC]

US Sec­re­tary of State John Ker­ry shares a moment with his Iran­ian coun­ter­part, Mohammed Javad Zarif, after con­clud­ing an agree­ment for relaxed sanc­tions and renewed talks. [Cred­it: BBC]

Iran, World Pow­ers Reach His­toric Nuclear Deal. – Wash­ing­ton Post 

“What was agreed last night in Gene­va is not a his­toric agree­ment, it is a his­toric mis­take.” — Israeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Netanyahu

The irre­sistible ten­den­cy of gov­ern­ment to over­sell its achieve­ments was on dis­play in this past weekend’s announce­ments of an agree­ment between Iran and the so-called G5+1 – the five per­ma­nent mem­bers of the UN Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil and Germany.

News out­lets the world over her­ald­ed the Iran nuclear deal as “his­toric.”  Its crit­ics called it his­toric fol­ly.  Review­ing the agree­ment, it appears that both sides are exag­ger­at­ing. It nei­ther sets back Iran’s capac­i­ty to devel­op nuclear weapons nor facil­i­tates their devel­op­ment. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

A‑Rod Is Right: Put Selig Under Oath

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Alex Rodriguez wants Bud Selig to answer questions about his role in baseball's long-running steroid scandal. [Credit: philly.com]

Alex Rodriguez wants Bud Selig to answer ques­tions about his role in base­bal­l’s long-run­ning steroid scan­dal. [Cred­it: philly.com]

Alex Rodriguez has a point.

The Yan­kee third base­man, who is appeal­ing his 211-game sus­pen­sion for sus­pect­ed use of per­for­mance-enhanc­ing sub­stances, stormed out of an arbi­tra­tion hear­ing last week and onto a New York sports radio pro­gram, where he deliv­ered a ram­bling, self-serv­ing and emo­tion­al screed against the pro­ceed­ings and the man who ordered his sus­pen­sion, Major League Base­ball Com­mis­sion­er Allan Huber (Bud) Selig. A‑Rod is angry that Selig did not appear at the pro­ceed­ings and go under oath.

A‑Rod is right about one thing: Bud Selig has a lot of explain­ing to do. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Could A Wealth Tax Solve the Problem of Government Debt?

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A recent IMF report suggests that this man's enormous wealth might help resolve the government's debt problem. [Credit: NY Post]

A recent IMF report sug­gests that this man’s enor­mous wealth might help resolve the gov­ern­men­t’s debt prob­lem. [Cred­it: NY Post]

The Inter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF) recent­ly report­ed that Euro­pean gov­ern­ments could reduce their debt back to pre-Great Reces­sion lev­els by con­fis­cat­ing 10 per­cent of the wealth held by their rich­est cit­i­zens. IMF isn’t rec­om­mend­ing that, of course.

They’re just sayin’. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Obamacare Bipartisanship: You Probably Can’t Keep Your Coverage

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President Obama had another stressful week. But not nearly as stressful as millions will experience when they find that they still can't keep their health coverage. [Credit: Dr. Lillian Glass Body Language Blog]

Pres­i­dent Oba­ma had anoth­er week of stress.  But not near­ly as much stress as mil­lions will expe­ri­ence when they find that they still can’t keep their health cov­er­age. [Cred­it: Dr. Lil­lian Glass Body Lan­guage Blog]

Wash­ing­ton has at last arrived at a bipar­ti­san con­sen­sus on what to do about the mil­lions of peo­ple whose insur­ance poli­cies are being can­celed because of Oba­macare: not near­ly enough. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Do You Believe In Government Conspiracies?

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Secretary of State John Kerry last week offered up his theory on the Kennedy assassination, joining the many of Americans who subscribe to conspiracy theories. [Credit: The Guardian]

Sec­re­tary of State John Ker­ry last week offered up his thoughts on the Kennedy assas­si­na­tion, join­ing many Amer­i­cans who sub­scribe to con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries. [Cred­it: The Guardian]

“Mod­ern diplo­mats approach every prob­lem with an open mouth.” — Arthur J. Gold­berg, for­mer Labor Sec­re­tary, Supreme Court Jus­tice, and UN Ambassador

If Gold­berg is right, then there is no more mod­ern a diplo­mat than our chat­ty Sec­re­tary of State, John Ker­ry. Ker­ry last week mused aloud on the Kennedy assas­si­na­tion dur­ing his inter­view with for­mer net­work news­read­er Tom Brokaw. “To this day,” Ker­ry said, “I have seri­ous doubts that Lee Har­vey Oswald act­ed alone.” Con­tin­ue read­ing →

The Cuccinelli Era Is Over

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Ken Cuccinelli fell short last night in his bid to become Governor of Virginia. Is the GOP mature enough to accept defeat and find a new way forward? [Credit: Huffington Post]

Ken Cuc­cinel­li fell short last night in his bid to become Gov­er­nor of Vir­ginia. Is the GOP mature enough to accept defeat and find a new way for­ward? [Cred­it: Huff­in­g­ton Post]

Chris Christie and Ter­ry McAu­li­ffe were both sup­posed to win big in their guber­na­to­r­i­al bids. Christie did; McAu­li­ffe didn’t. And that presents Con­gres­sion­al Repub­li­cans with a gen­uine oppor­tu­ni­ty to make crit­i­cal changes to the President’s health care law. If they don’t squan­der it. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

It’s Hard To Say No In That Fair Land of the Si’

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It's been a rough year for Italy's Silvio Berlusconi, who narrowly lost an election and was convicted of a crime that may result in his expulsion from the Senate. [Credit: Getty images]

It’s been a rough year for Italy’s Sil­vio Berlus­coni, whose par­ty nar­row­ly lost an elec­tion and who was him­self con­vict­ed of a crime that may result in his expul­sion from the Sen­ate. [Cred­it: Get­ty Images]

“Ah, Pisa , you the scan­dal of the peo­ples of that fair land where si’ is heard.”

– Dante

Washington’s flir­ta­tion with default engen­dered end­less hand-wring­ing about the par­lous state of our polit­i­cal sys­tem. But by Ital­ian stan­dards, Con­gress and the Pres­i­dent are doing just fine.

Last month, while GOP “defund Oba­macare” vig­i­lantes near­ly caused the mas­sive spend­ing and bor­row­ing machine that is our fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to seize up, Italy’s gov­ern­ment served up a sump­tu­ous feast of dys­func­tion, replete with sex scan­dals, res­ig­na­tions of cab­i­net min­is­ters, and an abortive attempt to top­ple a gov­ern­ment inca­pable of gov­ern­ing. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Blaming Insurers: Why Valerie Jarrett is Wrong

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Valerie Jarrett last night blamed insurers for cancelling policies. But it was the Administration itself that broke the President's promise to let people keep the coverage they like. (Credit: justpiper.com)

Valerie Jar­rett last night blamed insur­ers for can­celling poli­cies. But it was the Admin­is­tra­tion itself that broke the Pres­i­den­t’s promise to let peo­ple keep the cov­er­age they like. (Cred­it: justpiper.com)

Valerie Jar­rett last night sent the fol­low­ing tweet: “FACT: Noth­ing in #Oba­macare forces peo­ple out of their health plans. No change is required unless insur­ance com­pa­nies change exist­ing plans.”

Jarrett’s tweet sig­nals that the White House is now blam­ing insur­ers for can­celling cov­er­age for hun­dreds of thou­sands — and per­haps mil­lions — of Amer­i­cans. This is utter­ly men­da­cious. The text of Oba­macare, as Jar­rett sug­gests, explic­it­ly gives peo­ple the right to keep their exist­ing cov­er­age. But in an inex­plic­a­ble action, the Admin­is­tra­tion in 2010 issued a reg­u­la­tion that stripped peo­ple of that right and made it ille­gal for many insur­ers to renew cov­er­age for next year. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

More Than A Website: Will Insurers Prosper Under Obamacare?

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The Bee Gees' "More Than A Woman" was a 70s sensation. In promoting his health care law, the President now has a similar mantra: "More Than A Website." (Credit: AP)

The Bee Gees’ “More Than A Woman” was a 70s sen­sa­tion. In pro­mot­ing his health care law, the Pres­i­dent has adopt­ed a sim­i­lar phrase, remind­ing us that Oba­macare is more than a web­site. (Cred­it: AP)

The Pres­i­den­t’s health care law has had a trou­bled first month, but it is far too soon to know whether its prob­lems will prove last­ing and severe.  Even some of its most fer­vent sup­port­ers, like the Wash­ing­ton Post’s Ezra Klein, acknowl­edge that its defi­cien­cies run deep­er than a clunky web­site.  Oba­macare, the Pres­i­dent reminds us, is more than a web­site, but its prob­lems extend far beyond its 5 mil­lion lines of errant code. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

In Washington, All Is Well

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The faces of Congressional leaders are hardly etched with joy, but they did manage to avert a fiscal crisis, even if only for a few months. [Credit: Bloomberg]

The faces of Con­gres­sion­al lead­ers are hard­ly etched with joy, but they did man­age to avert a fis­cal cri­sis, even if only for a few months. [Cred­it: Bloomberg]

Octo­ber 16, 2013, 6:00 am

All is well in Wash­ing­ton. The gov­ern­ment is spend­ing and bor­row­ing again. Con­tin­ue read­ing →