It was not out of a sense of decency that the National Football League recently let go of its tax-exempt status. You see, as a tax-exempt organization, the NFL had to disclose Commissioner Roger Goodell's compensation -- $44.2 million in 2012. That seemed an excessive sum for the head of a "nonprofit" freed from having to pay any federal income tax. Now the NFL can keep it secret.
Earlier this week, we debuted our initial Crystal Ball Electoral College ratings in Politico Magazine. We’ve reprinted that column below for those who did not see it. As promised, we have elaborated on the map and our reasoning for the initial judgments.
"This vast right-wing conspiracy," Hillary Clinton said, "has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced." That was the "feminist" first lady's response when her husband was accused of having sex with a 21-year-old.
Some of Hillary Clinton's defenders have taken to saying that voters shouldn't pay attention to the latest Clinton scandals -- the gushing of often undisclosed millions to the Clintons and their organizations by characters seeking official favors -- because the charges are just one more in a long series: Whitewater, the Rose law firm billing records, the Buddhist temple fundraising, the Lippo Group.
Howard Wooldridge, a Washington lobbyist, is a former detective and forever Texan on an important mission -- trying to persuade the 535 members of Congress to end the federal war on marijuana.
Liberals tend to be an easier sell than conservatives. With liberals, Wooldridge dwells on the grossly racist way the war on drugs has been prosecuted.
Next week, Britain votes in its first general election in five years. Some aspects of its politics will be familiar to Americans. Polls show voters are dissatisfied with politicians of both parties, cynical about whether they will keep their promises and closely divided between two major parties, which have been in existence for more than 100 years.
Using the most bloodless terms, an economist explained the failure or inability of so many African-Americans to rise from their impoverished circumstances. They do not respond to the economic incentives that push others to study and strive, he said.
For Republicans looking ahead to 2016, Florida is the pivotal state in the Electoral College. Naturally, we can’t know exactly what will happen a year and a half from now, but from our current vantage point, it appears very likely that the GOP must win the state to have a shot at winning 270 or more electoral votes and control of the White House.
Given the state’s importance, particularly to the Republicans, it seems appropriate that the top two contenders for the party’s presidential nomination in the Crystal Ball’s rankings now hail from the Sunshine State.
I took a camera to Times Square this week and asked people, "What creates jobs?" Most had no answer.
Like spring, bipartisanship is busting out all over. Even more so maybe: Washington in a time of alleged global warming is suffering through a chilly, wet springtime, but bipartisanship is sprouting up like gangbusters.
Newt Gingrich recently recalled the bipartisan deal that doubled the budget for the National Institutes of Health -- with fondness. This was about 20 years ago, when Bill Clinton was president, and Republicans under Gingrich had just taken over Congress.
Never a member of the Gingrich fan club, I nonetheless join other liberal-minded observers in hailing the former House speaker not only for not disowning that investment in national greatness but for urging an encore. Gingrich, bless his black little heart, wants the budget doubled again.
It was sort of inevitable that on his first day of campaigning as an announced candidate for president earlier this month, Rand Paul would be asked whether he supported a ban on abortions in cases of rape or incest.
Reporters have been asking Republican candidates that question ever since 2012, when the Missouri Republican Senate candidate said he supported such a ban and added that pregnancies were unlikely in cases of "legitimate rape."
The results of recent national elections in the United States have followed a clear pattern: Democrats have dominated presidential elections while Republicans have dominated congressional and especially House elections. Since 1992, Democratic candidates have won four of six presidential elections and the popular vote for president five times out of six. At the same time, Republicans have won a majority of seats in the House of Representatives in nine of 12 elections and a majority of seats in the Senate in six of 12 elections. As a result, Democrats have controlled both chambers of Congress for only six of the past 22 years.
There's been some tense back-and-forth over the Canadian mother who said she had stopped opposing vaccinations after all seven of her kids came down with whooping cough. Some say we should loudly thank Tara Hills for publicly disowning her anti-vax campaign. Others -- me, for instance -- are feeling less grateful.
It's not smart to get too enthusiastic about any politician. I've been disappointed often. I believed Bill Clinton when he said, "the era of big government is over." I thought George W. Bush was a "small government guy." And Barack Obama ...
"I would bet on globalization slowly being in abeyance," tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel said in a video interview with George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen. "I think with the benefit of hindsight, we will realize that 2007 was not just the peak year of the finance boom, but also the peak year of globalization, like maybe 1913."
It's a tantalizing thought, and Thiel is well worth a listen. He is the co-founder of PayPal and the first outside investor in Facebook, selling his initial $500,000 investment eight years later for $1 billion. His record for spotting future trends and flexion points is impressive.
So machines are now able to assess a human's mood. "Emotion detection software" has put robots one step closer to replacing the humans who work -- or used to work -- in what we in the olden days called "customer relations."
Assuming that you, dear reader, are a human and not a column-consuming robot, you may be asking the question: What happens to the jobs of humans who were laboring under the impression that they could still do things machines couldn't?
Presidents are inevitably shaped by the circumstances in which they campaign for -- and come into -- office. In 1932, Franklin Roosevelt called for "bold, persistent experimentation" and followed through once in office. Had Roosevelt run in another year, or had there been no Great Depression, he would have campaigned and governed differently.
Some time ago, I heard a power company executive arguing that humans have played no role in global warming. Actually, he went further, "demonstrating" that global warming isn't even happening. (This is often done by cherry-picking dates to start with an unusually warm year.) He ended by spreading his arms and beseeching us in his common-sense voice, "Can't we meet in the sensible middle?"
Religious oppression was one reason many of our ancestors came to America. They wanted to escape rulers who demanded that everyone worship their way. In Ireland, Catholics couldn't vote or own a gun.
