Hitting the Fan Calpundit and Marshall are all over these, but the administration is getting hit hard on Iraq, pre-war planning, pre-war intelligence, the purported and promoted Saddam/9-11 link, and The Valerie Plame Affair, all while the performance of the economy remains mixed. Time, Newsweek, the Washington Post, and the NYT all have very scathing […]

More Poverty I took this graph from the Census Poverty Report and then identified which presidents were in office during which periods. Notice any patterns? AB

Poverty Up, Income Down The Census Bureau released the 2002 Poverty Report yesterday. In a nutshell, says the NYT, The number of Americans living in poverty increased by 1.7 million last year, and the median household income declined by 1.1 percent, the Census Bureau reported today. The worsening economic conditions fell heaviest on Midwesterners and […]

Has the CIA Finally Had Enough? MSNBC is reporting this interesting story: WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 — The CIA has asked the Justice Department to investigate allegations that the White House broke federal laws by revealing the identity of one of its undercover employees in retaliation against the woman’s husband, a former ambassador who publicly criticized […]

Protectionism and Congressional Republicans Brad DeLong has a link to this, from Morgan Stanley economist Stephen Roach: Cries of protectionism can be heard loud and clear in the hallowed halls of the US Congress. America’s jobless recovery has finally reached a breaking point. Republicans and Democrats, alike, are up in arms over the steady attrition […]

Another Vice Presidential Lie Confirmed From Cheney’s Meet the Press appearance on Sept. 14, 2003: CHENEY: …And since I left Halliburton to become George Bush’s vice president, I’ve severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interests. I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven’t had […]

The Dean Bat 5½ days down, 4½ left to raise $5 million in 10 days. I just checked the Dean campaign’s fundraising “bat”, and as of Friday at 11am they had only raised about $1.4 million of that $5. Will they actually come up short on their fundraising goal? That would be a first for […]

Kerry to Dean: Please stop abusing the elderly Kerry wrote a letter to Dean that I think does more to make Kerry look bad than to hurt Dean–the tone is basically “Dear Howard Dean, won’t your please reconsider your position on this issue, as the result of your policy will be to starve children and […]

RIAA I think the record labels are taking the wrong approach to digital music–suing file sharers, crying to congress, and operating their own crappy music websites (pressplay and something or other) instead of innovating. Nevertheless, I’m basically sympathetic to the recording industry’s copyright concerns (if I think $13.99 is too much to pay for a […]

Why you should read Bushwhacked Ivins is always insightful if a bit far to the left and, in her own way, she’s as funny as Franken. Here’s Ivins on why liberals don’t like Bush (from her column, not the book): So George Dubya becomes president, having run as a “compassionate conservative,” and what do we […]