Seth D. Michaels: “The Roberts era has been marked by decisions that advantage big corporations, in the political process and in the workplace.”
Chris Christie today is making his biggest push yet to put the BridgeGate scandal behind him. His lawyer this morning is releasing an internal investigative report, which will reportedly clear him. Then Christie and his wife are sitting down for an interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer, which will air tonight. TPM’s Eric Lach has a look at what’s ahead and why Christie’s spin probably won’t work.
I go out of the country for a week and suddenly Nate Silver and Paul Krugman are in some big feud. And apparently it won’t end!
Nothing like an Arizona gubernatorial candidate citing a hate group during a speech on border security.
Today I’m really excited to announce that we’ve launched a very cool new section to our popular Idea Lab vertical called Idea Lab: Impact, which is being sponsored by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. I’ve wanted to take Idea Lab in this direction for some time. Idea Lab focuses science, cutting edge technology, the tech industry and the economics, policy and politics that surrounds those issues and sometimes on the gizmos we all use everyday. Idea Lab: Impact will have a different focus. How is science and applied technology affecting real human lives? How is it impacting people and communities living on the margins of global wealth and on the margins of the technological transformations of the 21st century – whether that’s in subsaharan Africa or Appalachia or in congested great cities of the world. Basically, how is and how can science and technology change the lives of people in their every day lives – not only with their gadgets and not only for people who command great wealth, but real world impacts for everyone.
Watch Live: Christie Attorney presents findings of Christie investigation into Bridge closure. Watch.
While everyone was talking about the Hobby Lobby arguments before the Supreme Court, a lawsuit that could be the undoing of Obamacare was argued before the DC Circuit Court the same day. Sahil Kapur tells you how it could be the law’s undoing.
Christie Lawyer releases 300+ page report: Upshot, Christie totally in the clear. All bad acts by David Wildstein and Bridget Kelly.
So two key Christie appointees hatched a plan to close the bridges. But Christie knew nothing about it. No advanced knowledge. No role in pushing the plan. No knowledge that it was a bad act rather than a legitimate traffic study.
In other words, it’s good to be the governor.
When your Democratic candidate makes a huge mistake like dissing farmers in the state of Iowa, who do you call? Elizabeth Warren, of course.
This whole Krugman/Silver brouhaha broke out when I was on vacation. And I’m only beginning to catch up on the details. But TPM Reader SR has some interesting thoughts on trying to “disrupt” fields of inquiry which, unlike politics and formerly sports, already have a lot of highly numerate practitioners …
Krugman and Silver are both notoriously a bit prickly—whether by nature or just because of all the idiotic hack pushback both of them have endured for years for the unpardonable sin of being right again and again when the Cohens and the Noonans and the Scarboroughs of the world have been willfully wrong.
But when you see Silver trying to refute Krugman’s criticism that people on his new site have so far been using data as like a drunk uses a lamppost by conflating correlation with causation and, more generally by treating Krugman as if he was just another hack defending the NYT and his own blowsy, fact free turf, he rather conclusively establishes the truth of Krugman’s criticism.