The New Republic

 -- It's a "Great Contraction" not a "Great Recession." And that means we need some inflation. -- But where are the Fed appointees? -- How Nancy Pelosi bailed out John Boehner.  READ MORE >>

Matt Damon appeared at a rally this weekend held by the anti-education reform left, and this video exchange between him and a Reason reporter is getting a lot of attention: It's certainly nice that Damon wants to defend teachers. But, first of all, the fact is that not all teachers are dedicated and good. A few are lazy and bad. Their badness and laziness has serious consequences for children, because it is extremely hard in practice to fire even obviously incompetent teachers. READ MORE >>

I'm not sure how many readers are going to be interested in this, but I've been dragged into a pissing match between right-wing pseudojournalist Andrew Breitbart and various lackeys and critics thereof. A couple days ago, Breitbart clipped an exchange in which Norah O'Donnell asked Jay Carney about Democratic objections to the debt ceiling deal. Commentary quoted a portion of the clip to make it appear as though O'Donnell was describing those objections as her own. READ MORE >>

Alexander Burns and Maggie Haberman have a story for Politico about Rick Perry's limitations as a general election candidate. READ MORE >>

There's a really strange fight brewing between the Obama administration and Republicans over which baseline the supercommittee should use to measure its deficit proposals. The baseline is the comparison the Congressional Budget Office uses to figure out how much a policy change saves. Republicans say the baseline needs to be "current law." READ MORE >>

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There's been some debate over whether the supercommittee will simply deadlock over the Republican refusal to raise any taxes, or whether Republicans will roll Democrats again and force another all-cuts budget deal. I am less sure, in part because the alternative to a deal (huge cuts to medical providers and the military) frightens Republicans as much as Democrats. READ MORE >>

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, he writes: READ MORE >>

-- The People's Daily says that the U.S. has merely "pushed off" its sovereign debt problems. -- Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 READ MORE >>

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