The New Republic

He just weighed in on it in his Elkhart, Indiana, Q&A. --Noam Scheiber READ MORE >>

A headline on the Times web site right now seems to capture it: Live-Blogging Amazon's Kindle 2.0 Launch. God help us. Update: Okay, maybe I'm just a luddite. Andrew seems to think this is a revolutionary event. --Noam Scheiber READ MORE >>

Per Chait's suggestion about doctoring the stimulus bill in the conference committee, it seems like the obvious fix here is ditching the AMT measure, which costs just under $70 billion, and adding back in the state aid and school construction money (about $56 billion). That would make the Senate bill look a lot more like the House bill, basically ensuring passage in the lower chamber. READ MORE >>

First Read asks: READ MORE >>

Good to see the moderates in the Senate cut all that wasteful spending out of the stimulus: The biggest cut, roughly $40 billion in aid to states, was likely to spur a fierce fight in negotiations with the House over the final bill. Many states, hit hard by the recession, face wrenching cuts in services and layoffs of public employees as they struggle to comply with laws requiring them to balance their budgets. ...  READ MORE >>

Stanford economist Paul Romer unveils an innovative credit-crisis fix in today's Journal: READ MORE >>

Here's Noonan in her Journal column today: READ MORE >>

Jon Chait and I were debating this at our editorial meeting this morning. Jon says the GOP's dream is to derail the stimulus plan, which would devastate the economy and destroy Obama's presidency. I say that'd be pretty self-defeating. Everyone knows Obama inherited an economic mess, and that Obama and the Democrats badly want to pass a stimulus. If the stimulus dies, the GOP will almost certainly get blamed. READ MORE >>

But you'd never know it from all the right-wing agitprop on the subject. On Friday, Fox News ran an item saying Obama would cut the Pentagon budget by $55 billion, sourced to an anonymous "defense official." Then today, Tony Blankley had this to say in his Washington Times column: READ MORE >>

Two quick points about Daschle's withdrawal: READ MORE >>