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TV and Limitless News Coverage Are Turning Our Brains And Our Economy to Mush
Tweet Share on Facebook February 27, 2009 Comment (5)By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
I was in College Station, Texas last weekend, where the unemployment rate is hovering around three percent. The stores were busy, the hotel was sold out with three different softball teams, and the Live at Five news seemed to be all about the weather. When I asked locals about the effects of the economic recession, I got shrugs and shaking heads. No problem here, they said, hasn't affected us at all.
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Nationalized Healthcare Would Be a Middle Class Disaster
Tweet Share on Facebook February 27, 2009 Comment (83)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
I'm not as thrilled with the O'budget on health care as on education. Nationalized health care has been a disaster for the middle class wherever it exists. Yes it gives access to the deeply impoverished, but at the expense of the middle class. The rich can always buy their way out of any health care system and get the best of care. Here's what the Obama administration will do:
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Obama's 2010 Budget Stresses the Answer to Almost Every Economic Ill: Education
Tweet Share on Facebook February 27, 2009 Comment (12)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
It's true: the O'budget redefines government as we know it. The idea of putting minor off-budget items (such as wars) back on-budget is brilliant. Keeping those costs hidden, a Bush concoction, was never anything but wicked wizardry. Making college more affordable and improving public schools, is among the most important things this president will do:
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Obama's 2010 Budget: Class Warfare that Redefines Audacity
Tweet Share on Facebook February 27, 2009 Comment (104)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Wow. And we thought Barack Obama's speech on Tuesday night ("oh, and by the way, we're going to cure cancer") was audacious. Now we've had a look at the Audacity budget.
Holy Reagan and Roosevelt, Batman! Before this guy is done, we're gonna need new synonyms for "bold."
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Progressive "Accountability Now PAC" Will Target Wayward Democrats in Primaries
Tweet Share on Facebook February 27, 2009 Comment (2)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
A bunch of prominent liberal activist groups and blogs have formed a new PAC which aims to "use primaries to hold incumbents to account," according to the group's press release, challenging "vulnerable members of Congress who side with corporate interests instead of constituents."
When Republicans were ascendant, groups like Club for Growth aimed to start weeding out insufficiently conservative lawmakers, targeting them in primary races. The strategy worked in a sense: There are certainly few moderate Republicans left standing.
So is Accountability Now PAC, as the new group is called, a liberal version of that strategy? They insist not. We'll see.
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Obama's Threat to Charities and Universities: His Budget and Taxes
Tweet Share on Facebook February 27, 2009 Comment (20)By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
In the 1830s Alexis de Tocqueville identified as one of this country's great strengths Americans' propensity to form voluntary associations. It remains one of America's great strengths today, one which distinguishes us from every other nation. But it is under attack from the Obama administration. As the Wall Street Journal reports:
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A Mortgage Securities Fix: Instant Online Financial Data
Tweet Share on Facebook February 26, 2009 Comment (23)By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Another interesting article from Wired presents a proposal I have been trying to come up with. The problem with mortgage-based securities is that no one can value them because no one knows what's in them. My idea has been that in order to have transparency, we should regulate the markets the way the Chicago Board of Trade started regulating the grain futures market years ago—separating grain into four (or some similarly low number) grades of grain and declaring all grain within that category fungible. In Wired Daniel Roth has a far better idea:
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Sex on Wall Street Still Dictates Success
Tweet Share on Facebook February 26, 2009 Comment (4)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
Check out the cover of Forbes magazine, and its story on Wall Street women whacked in the downturn. The subhead asks:
After the scandals of the 1990s, didn't Investment Banks put sexist employment practices behind them? Evidently not.
All I can say is, it figures!
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Bobby Jindal Gets It From Kenneth the Page of '30 Rock,' Too
Tweet Share on Facebook February 26, 2009 Comment (2)By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
In the wake of widespread Internet comparisons of Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal with Kenneth the Page from NBC's comedy 30 Rock, the actor who plays Kenneth weighed in last night with a response to the response to the ... well, click below and you'll see.
Maybe the GOP should just give in and establish a "30 Rock Primary," which could come around the time of the Iowa straw poll. In order to be the GOP nominee, you have to be perfectly mimicked by someone from 30 Rock Or maybe the GOP would prefer it the other way around ...
(Hat tip to Politico's Michael Calderone.)
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The Death Penalty and Its Perils—A Story for Maryland, O'Malley and the Supreme Court
Tweet Share on Facebook February 26, 2009 Comment (5)By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
The state of Maryland is debating Gov. Martin O'Malley's proposal to repeal the death penalty. And the U.S. Supreme Court will soon consider whether prisoners have a right to DNA testing that could prove their innocence.
So this seems an opportune moment to share a story from my upcoming book on Clarence Darrow. It's about the case in which Darrow worked as a prosecutor, and why the great defense attorney never forgot the lessons it taught him.
