Mr. President—please talk to us! Four long weeks since the midterm elections, and there has been no significant communication from you about your understanding of why the electorate was unhappy—or how you plan to proceed. From Slate Eliot Spitzer should be Obama’s Chief of Staff.
Learned Helplessness
It’s true that if you bought completely into rational-expectations macroeconomics, the crisis in the economy should be causing a crisis in your faith — although as far as I can tell, the freshwater types remain smugly convinced of their rightness. But those of us who hadn’t forgotten Keynes, who paid attention to things like Japan’s… Continue reading Learned Helplessness
China’s Politburo Ordered Hack of Google
The Chinese government, which has been thought for some time to have been the source of the hacking of Google’s servers, leading to Google’s departure from China, directed attacks on the company’s web servers, according to diplomatic cables disclosed today by WikiLeaks. From Andy Plesser: China’s Politburo Ordered Hack of Google, WikiLeaks Reveals Is this… Continue reading China’s Politburo Ordered Hack of Google
Sarah Palin TV show jumps the Grizzly
40 Percent ratings drop. Median age of the show is 57.
A report on the symbiotic relationship between far-right extremists and the Tea Parties
A couple of months ago I traveled out to Montana as part of a project examining how the extremist right – particularly the Patriot movement – has embedded itself within the Tea Party movement, particularly on a local level in rural areas where elements of the 1990s militia movement were still lurking. From Crooks and… Continue reading A report on the symbiotic relationship between far-right extremists and the Tea Parties
What is a family? Chart Of The Day
From Pew: Catherine Rampell hopes that “Pew continues to ask this particular question in the future”: It’ll be interesting to see how the evolving definitions of such social terms affect how Americans think about the social safety net and related economy policies. The whole report, which takes a look at the state of marriage and… Continue reading What is a family? Chart Of The Day
Joe Barton’s climate report was plagiarized
The Texas Republican asked a statistician to cast doubts on climate science From Joe Barton’s climate report was plagiarized – War Room – Salon.com Anyone shocked that the guy who apologized to BP isn’t an honest actor in the climate debate?
The health-care reform negotiations in one cartoon
From The health-care reform negotiations in one cartoon Last 30 years of US politics in a nutshell.
Gore Riles Corn Ethanol Lobby
Al Gore has apparently irked some members of the ethanol lobby by suggesting during a panel discussion at a green business conference on Monday that his earlier support for corn-based ethanol subsidies was “a mistake.” From Gore Riles Corn Ethanol Lobby – NYTimes.com Now that he will never run a campaign in Iowa, he can be honest.
The Tea Party and the market for land
You have people here who enjoy their existing low density lifestyles, they like the fact that said lifestyles are explicitly and implicitly subsidized through a variety of public policy measures, and they don’t like the idea of losing those subsidies. What’s more, they regard their antagonists as somewhat culturally alien. So they’re pissed off. The… Continue reading The Tea Party and the market for land