SOTU I didn’t listen to the entire SOTU, primarily because it pains me to hear the leader of the Free World say NU-CUE-LAR (yes, Carter did it too, but that doesn’t make it right). But of the parts I did hear, one passage really struck me: We’re seeking all the facts. Already, the Kay report […]

Employment Charts in Thirty Seconds I just came across a really cool application, Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey, at the Bureau of Labor Statistics web page. There, you can quickly assemble charts and graphs on a number of labor and economic measures collected by the BLS, broken down by a variety of […]

Iowa’s Effect on the Political Markets As I’ve mentioned before, the Iowa Electronic Market is a great place to see how events shape the perceived probabilities of each candidate winning the nomination. Here is today’s graph, showing the last night’s Iowa caucus results have affected the shares of all of the candidates. Note that Edwards […]

A Preview of the State of the Union: More Concealed Costs? Bush has made a specialty of proposing policies that are tremendously expensive without actually addressing their costs. Some examples include: Tax cuts. Stated cost by Bush before the fact: none. The claim was that they would boost the economy so much that tax revenue […]

Edwards-Clark or Clark-Edwards? The title is actually intended to mock the proclivity of the press for taking any event and projecting it linearly into the future: Dean is definitely down, but not out. Also, I remain firm in my conviction that Kerry will not be the nominee (though I will support him if he is). […]

We don’t care if it’s right, thorough, or helps prevent future attacks…Just get it done! And by get it done, we mean get it done soon enough that voters won’t remember it come November: A growing number of commission members had concluded that the panel needs more time to prepare a thorough and credible accounting […]

The No Jobs President James K. Galbraith, who heads the University of Texas Inequality Project and who I correspond with fairly often, has today’s lead piece in Salon, The no jobs president. Here’s a highlight: Next, notice when the deep dive ends. That’s right: It was just after Sept. 11, 2001. It’s true that President […]

Mea Culpa? Washington Post ombudsman Michael Getler has apparently been getting lots of email alleging that the Post is burying or slanting anti-Bush stories, particularly stories related to Iraq (the WaPo editorial page is pro-war). Point by point, Getler reviews the charges and then admits that they have some merit. The tone is one of […]

What’s With Sully? Noted conservative hack, Andrew Sullivan, posted this on Thursday: LET THE KIDS PAY FOR IT: I’m talking about this $170 billion foray into space. After all, the next generation will be paying for a collapsed social security system, a bankrupted Medicare program, soaring interest on the public debt, as well as coughing […]

American Street Update There’s one more to-be-revealed contributor, but the list is otherwise complete: Angry Bear Bill Scher Chuck Currie Dave Johnson David Neiwert Digby Dirk Steele General J.C. Christian Jeff Alworth Jeralyn Merritt Kash Kevin Hayden Luis Toro Mary Ratcliff Mark A.R. Kleiman Ross skippy Tom Burka The most recent additions are Ross, Tom […]