The New Republic

I'm sorry, but any list of "Top Ten Least Impressive 'Supergroups'" that doesn't include The Firm (Bad Company's Paul Rodgers, Zeppelin's Jimmy Page et al.; biggest hit: "Radioactive") and, especially, Asia (King Crimson's John Wetton, Yes's Steve Howe, ELP's Carl Palmer, etc; biggest hit: "Heat of the Moment") really isn't trying very hard. Walk with me down memory lane, if you dare:   READ MORE >>

A Times editorial properly laments the stalemate in Congress over an important and underappreciated component of Obama's AfPak plan: Congress left town for its summer recess without passing a long-promised bill to triple American economic and development assistance to Pakistan — the centerpiece of Mr. Obama’s plan to win the hearts and minds of the Pakistani people. READ MORE >>

Julia Ioffe is a writer living in New York. Russian legislators summering in Sochi got a special visit from President Dmitry Medvedev yesterday when he came into town to introduce a bill that would radically expand his powers to declare war and move troops outside Russia’s borders. READ MORE >>

Today's WSJ article about Obama's micromanaging of economic policy led me to fire up the Google and find Jim Fallows's classic Atlantic piece on Jimmy Carter from 1979. Here's the graf that forever cemented Carter's presidency as a cautionary tale of micromanagement: READ MORE >>

A couple days ago I linked to Sarah Wang's account of her trip to North Korea. Ever since then I haven't been able to get the pictures Wang took out of my mind. The photos themselves are quite unremarkable. READ MORE >>

The Colbert Report Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c Jonathan Cohn www.colbertnation.com READ MORE >>

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From Zach Roth over at TPM: It looks like Rick Lowry of National Review offered the White House his services in doing some positive P.R. on behalf of Rove protege Tim Griffin, who the administration had sought to sought to muscle into the U.S. attorney job in Arkansas as a replacement for the fired Bud Cummins. In a January 2007 email, White House political director Sara Taylor wrote: READ MORE >>

Ed Kilgore is managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, and a frequent contributor to a variety of political journals.    READ MORE >>

It broke my hillbilly heart to learn that country music crooners Brooks & Dunn announced on their website yesterday that, after 20 years, they're hanging up their spurs.  Is their music cutting edge? Nah. Alt country? Nope. They are as mainstream as modern country gets, but they produced some damn catchy tunes and had an impressive run. As noted on Wikipedia: READ MORE >>