Nov 05, 2009

Submitted by Forthandback from Google Reader: Republicans are learning an unpleasant lesson this morning: The only thing worse than having no health-care reform plan is releasing a bad one, getting thrashed by CBO and making the House Democrats look good in comparison. Late last night, the Congressional Budget Office released its initial analysis of the health-care ref (Read More)

Nov 03, 2009

Submitted by Forthandback from Google Reader: Ryan Avent asks what would happen if for just one year we spent as much on infrastructure investments as we do on the Department of Defense:With that kind of money you could entirely build out a national network of true high-speed rail. One year’s worth of defense spending gets you that. Which makes one wonder: where are al (Read More)

Nov 02, 2009

Submitted by Forthandback from Google Reader: It's a pretty safe bet that I'm going to be interested in any post entitled: "Health Care Costs: A Market-Theoretic View." And economist Austin Frakt delivers: His argument, essentially, is that a more competitive insurance market could lead to higher costs for consumers. The reason is simple enough: The relevant driver of (Read More)

Nov 02, 2009

Submitted by Forthandback from Google Reader: A good, well, tweet from Chris Hayes:Anyone notice that the pres signed a $680 BILLION defense approp bill in the midst of our debates about $90b a yr for hc?That $680 billion, incidentally, doesn't count the cost of the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. You could say a lot about this juxtaposition, but among other things, it's (Read More)

Oct 22, 2009

Submitted by Forthandback from Google Reader: The House of Representatives is readying itself to release three delicious flavors of health-care reform. One of the bills will have a public option trigger. Another will have a level-playing field proposal. And the third will have the Hardy's Thickburger of public options: Medicare rates plus 5 percent, national, the whole (Read More)

Oct 13, 2009

Submitted by Forthandback from Google Reader: Charles Krauthammer has a fantastically silly Weekly Standard article headlined “Decline Is a Choice: The New Liberalism and the end of American ascendancy.” Robert Farley makes some good observations about the piece but I think he lets Krauthammer’s central conceit off too easy, offering only a parenthetical remark about “ (Read More)

Oct 02, 2009

Photos from everyone tagged liverpool joedog33 posted a photo: Taken at the steps in Liverpool Qne. (Read More)

Oct 13, 2009

Google Alerts - "green lantern" I was very disappointed that you put up an awesome Green Lantern pic and had nothing to say about the Lanterns in your post. Not only because that makes putting the photo up in the first place plain bizare, but also because when you ... Matthew Yglesias - http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/. (Read More)

Oct 12, 2009

Submitted by Forthandback from Google Reader: Catherine Rampell rounds up some good charts on the state of the economy. And by "good," I mean "depressing, but visually attractive." The first comes from the Atlanta Federal Reserve and concerns part-time workers. There are two types of part-time workers -- those who don't want full-time jobs, and those who can't get them (Read More)

Oct 12, 2009

Submitted by Forthandback from Google Reader: It's strange to watch op-ed columnists using their valuable and finite real estate to complain that the real problem with Barack Obama accepting is that there were more deserving recipients. One might say the same about these op-ed columns, which could surely be about something more useful. Ross Douthat, for instance, says (Read More)

Oct 10, 2009

Submitted by Forthandback from Google Reader: We met yesterday with the top communications guy from Vestas, a Danish company that’s the world’s number one maker of wind turbines. I found myself a bit surprised by the pristine simplicity of what he was saying—he didn’t talk about the need to price carbon, he wasn’t asking for feed-in tariffs, didn’t say much about renew (Read More)

Oct 06, 2009

Submitted by Forthandback from Google Reader: Economist Andy Samwick also found Sunday's New York Times expose on beef production to be reminiscent of the mortgage market. We once got our meat from slaughterhouses, and now we get our meat from something akin to livestock holding companies. "As in the mortgage mess," Samwick writes, "finding the party to hold accountabl (Read More)

Oct 02, 2009

Submitted by Forthandback from Google Reader: George Will's latest column questioning the science of global warming is not a very good portrayal of the evidence in George Will's latest column questioning the science on global warming. This might be because Will mostly got the evidence from an article someone else published in the New York Times, but that Will doesn't s (Read More)

Sep 30, 2009

Submitted by Forthandback from Google Reader: John Judis believes that President Obama's fortunes, along with those of the congressional Democrats, are lashed to pretty much one thing and one thing only: job numbers. And he's got some graphs to prove it. Here are Ronald Reagan's approval numbers, plotted against unemployment.Bill Clinton's fortunes:The trends match, fo (Read More)

Sep 30, 2009

Submitted by Forthandback from Google Reader: Attending Physician of the United States Congress, Brian MonahanThis sure is a nice perk congress has granted itself:Formally called the Office of the Attending Physician, the clinic — and at least six satellite offices — bills its mission as one of emergency preparedness and public health. Each day, it stands ready to hand (Read More)

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