Craig Gurian

The "curse" of state reliance on high earners to pay a big share of taxes leaves states "starved for revenue in a bust.” The "root" of California’s woes is "its reliance on taxing the wealthy.” Claims like these mean that a recent Wall Street Journal article will undoubtedly be brandished in tax fights. But the story doesn't add up. And, interestingly, one needn’t go beyond the four corners of the Journal’s “Saturday Essay” feature to figure that out.

Multiple agencies unable or unwilling to describe minimum level of airborne contamination that would generate concern about medium- and long-term health effects.

One might imagine that U.S. government agencies are well-versed in the physics of how, when, over what period of time, and with what consequences, radioactive particles may rise to the altitude of the jet stream, there to be transported from Japanese air space across the Pacific Ocean until some subset of those particles were circulating in the jet stream over the United States.

One might also imagine that a basic level of national security vigilance would mean that these agencies had definitive plans in place to coordinate with one another, apply established standards of radiological safety to the context of air travel in and through that jet stream, and update the public accordingly.

At least in respect to the second set of imaginings, it appears that one would be wrong.

For years, New York Times reporters (or their editors) had been too "diplomatic" to use the "D" word.

A shift in demographics to relatively smaller cohorts of young people is almost never viewed as presenting an opportunity, just as the challenge of how to successfully support a greater percentage of older people without lower living standards either for them or their younger compatriots is virtually never viewed as one worth facing and winning.

The way a recent New York Times/CBS News poll framed the issues meant the results invariably stayed within the bounds of a relatively narrow range of policy options, rendering a broader spectrum of policy choices invisible.

It’s hard to find a big-state governor who is not sounding a call for “shared sacrifice.” It’s even harder to find one who really means it. At the same time we’re told that real sacrifice requires real pain, we also have to accept that businesses must be exempt from any pain. Instead, states must compete to beg for their favors.

Brazen resistance to a historic 2009 federal court order is so far met by a yawn - or worse.

How "realistic" is it to believe that the GOP has developed magical or superhuman immunity to public pressure?