The New Republic

The debate over re-regulation of the financial sector has finally, and irreversibly, turned partisan. This helps define issues in ways that may be more familiar and thus easier to understand. READ MORE >>

My Inbox reports: Media Advisory Renowned writer/director Nora Ephron will donate objects from the set of her latest Columbia Pictures film “Julie & Julia” to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. The motion picture is based in part on famed chef Julia Child’s life and features a reproduction of her kitchen, which is on display at the museum. READ MORE >>

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Jonah Goldberg says that President Obama would have been in better political shape if only he had agreed to cut some taxes as part of his economic stimulus measure: READ MORE >>

Politico is reporting today that U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) is, by popular bipartisan demand, withdrawing his re-election candidacy, with a characteristic blast against the back-stabbers in his party who allegedly "undermined" his puny fundraising efforts.  READ MORE >>

Mike's blog post below touches on a very, er, touchy subject in the world of pick-up basketball. Imagine you are playing a game with people you either do not know, or do not consistently play on the same team as (in other words, you rotate teams daily). And you are playing without uniforms. In the heat of the moment, someone will often shout for the ball, hoping that a member of the opposite team passes it and commits a turnover. READ MORE >>

Francisco Toro blogs obsessively about Venezuela and the Ch READ MORE >>

Al Kamen has the scoop on a high-powered DC pickup basketball game involving the likes of David Axelrod, former Navy Secretary (and, some say, possible successor to Defense Secretary Robert Gates) Richard Danzig, and FCC chairman Julius Genachowski. I'm moved to blog by this: READ MORE >>

Earlier this year people were warning the Obama team that Congress didn't have the bandwidth to handle several major issues at once. But it's looking like the issue may not be bandwidth so much as the political juice it takes to fight a bunch of grueling policy battles in a short period of time. Says the WaPo: READ MORE >>

Senator John Cornyn does the usual Bolivia-Bulgaria and Austria-Australia foreign country transpositions one better: READ MORE >>