The New Republic

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Simon Johnson, professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, and co-founder of BaselineScenario.com, breaks down the federal government's announcement that it will take over the pension plans of the Delphi Corporation, arguing that unfortunately, there's little else the government can do. 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 >>

In an interview promoting his upcoming film Funny People, director Judd Apatow describes his original script for Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy: READ MORE >>

Fascinating, and mostly heartening, new numbers from a Pew poll: For the first time since Pew began making the comparison, people in Turkey, Egypt, and Indonesia — all predominantly Muslim nations — expressed greater confidence in the American president than in Osama bin Laden.  Also, trust that America will "do the right thing" is up 70-plus percent across Western Europe. READ MORE >>

An American Apparel picture is, as ever, worth a thousand words: READ MORE >>

At the risk of turning this into a basketball blog, I wanted to follow up on that web story I wrote last week about how having an active, involved father might actually be an obstacle to becoming a big-time basketball star. READ MORE >>

As people continue to get worked up about Obama's comments on the Henry Louis Gates story, I think it's important to remember what the president didn't say. He did not call the behavior of James Crowley, the arresting officer, racist. He did call Crowley's behavior stupid. And, really, I think it's hard to reach any other conclusion when you consider that Crowley arrested Gates after he realized Gates was "breaking in" to his own home. READ MORE >>

Somehow, I doubt that circulating photo manipulations of Barack Obama dressed as an African witch doctor is going to help the health-care opposition. But it's telling that the circulator, Dr. David McKalip, seems to think this is a normal component of "policy debate," too.  --Christopher Orr READ MORE >>

Senator Jim DeMint accuses Barack Obama of "lower[ing] the discourse" in the health care debate and "respond[ing] to a policy debate with political attack ads." READ MORE >>