Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Ron Suskind

His latest Bush exegesis, Without a Doubt, in tomorrow’s New York Times is online now: Bruce Bartlett, a domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan and a treasury official for the first President Bush, told me recently that “if Bush wins, there will be a civil war in the Republican Party starting on Nov. 3.” The […]

Jon Stewart

Regular readers know that I’m a big fan of The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. Well apparently, Stewart and Tucker Carlson had a bit of a to-do today on Crossfire. Wonkette reports the following exchange: Tucker: You always scold people like this at dinner at your house? Jon: If they have a show that’s as […]

Gross Federal Debt as of September 30, 2004

As a follow-up to Kash’s post earlier, note that the total Federal debt reported as of 9/30/2004 was $7378 billion. Table B-78 of the Economic Report of the President 2004 noted that gross Federal debt was $6760 billion as of 9/30/2003, which means debt rose by $618 billion. It is true that the Economic Report […]

Tempest in a Gay Teapot

So Republican outrage — outrage, I tell you! — continues to burn. A few points. I’ve said it before, but apparently I need to say it again: if you think “lesbian” is an insult, then you’re probably anti-gay. Or as I wrote in an update to my live-bloggin’ post from debate three: Now to editorialize […]

Sec. Snow might wish to be CFO of United Airlines

Brad DeLong asks a very good question as he links to a story by Edmund Andrews: How is the U.S. government under Bush different from the management of United Airlines? United Airlines’ management is no longer making its payments to the employee pension fund. Bush is not only not making payments to the employee pension […]

Chibi

If you’re active in the comments here, you’re probably familiar with Chibi. While he’s apparently too polite to shamelessly self-promote in the comments, Chibi has a blog now: http://blogochibi.blogspot.com that you should check out. See, for example, this post on the housing market bubble in California. AB UPDATE: See also The General.

Final Tally of 2004 Budget Deficit

Yesterday the Treasury Department made it official: 2004’s budget deficit was $413 billion, which is about 3.6% of GDP. The statement that accompanied the data release focused on the fact that this is a lower number than was originally estimated several months ago. Snow and Bolton point to this as evidence that Bush’s handling of […]

The Market Keeps Working

Unsuprisingly, Sinclair stations are losing advertisers. Interestingly, the advertisers say that emails and calls from consumers were not the reason they decided to pull the ads – they did it on their own initiative. I suspect that the value of this in-kind political donation that the managers of Sinclair are making to the Bush campaign […]

This should make Dan Drezner nervous

Buried at the bottom of this story on the higher trade deficit, we get this tidbit: A coalition of textile groups asked the administration Tuesday to limit imports of textiles from China, timing the filing of its case to force the administration to make a preliminary ruling by Nov. 1, the day before the election. […]

Has Gene Sperling Seen the Latest from Bush-Cheney?

Bush-Cheney ’04 is floating some spin with the title Kerry’s Economic Proposals Fall Short Of The President’s Achievements. Read for a good laugh as it is incredibly weak. But I suspect Sperling has seen this as I got it from the Kerry camp via email. How dumb does Bush-Cheney think the American people are?