–Recovery is in a full-blown stall. The unemployment rate stayed at 9.5% in July as the economy lost 131,00 jobs. Losses were fed in part by departing temporary census workers; the private sector added 71,000 new positions, albeit below expectations. –White House Council of Economic Advisers chairwoman Christina Romer plans to step down in September. [...]
Council of Economic Advisers chair Christina Romer is leaving the White House. Office Of Management And Budget director Peter Orszag has left the White House. Get ready for more to come. The midterm is fast approaching, and this is traditionally a time for rotation. The potential reasons are many–family, really; the need to make more [...]
Jon Chait can be a pretty smart columnist, except for when he gets too clever…and also when he gets extremely literal. Here he is, taking me to task for saying–at the close of this week’s column–that we should only go to war when we have been attacked or are under direct threat. Well. First of all, [...]
Our colleague Elizabeth Dias files this report: If you’ve followed the illegal immigration controversy in Arizona, you’ll be familiar with the state’s hard-edged Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who is famous for dressing inmates in pink underwear and for boasting an all-female chain gang. Loved by conservatives, hated by immigrant-rights groups, Arpaio is now in the news [...]
After another summer of hyperbolic debate, the Senate voted 63-37 Thursday to confirm solicitor general and former Harvard Law School dean Elena Kagan as the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Despite the obligatory objections over her judicial record (or lack thereof), legal philosophy (real and imagined) and all-around Obama-appointedness, Kagan breezed through the [...]
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the political dynamic preventing the Obama administration from pumping more spending into the economy, which some of its top economic officials believe would act as insurance against the possibility of a double-dip recession. Yesterday the Senate voted to approve $26 billion in direct aid to state governments, [...]
Updated, 3:55 p.m. –The Pentagon has asked WikiLeaks to return the 15,000 Afghan war documents it has so far declined to publish. –At a Ford plant in Chicago, President Obama touts he success of the auto industry bailout. –Josh Green sizes up the Democrats’ “supersurrogate.” –Christopher Beam finds the anti-incumbency meme unconvincing. –Target apologizes for [...]
The idea of House ethics has evolved over time. For example, when Daniel Webster was chairman of the Senate Finance Committee in the 1830’s, he was upfront about his second job working for the Bank of America. Few colleagues criticized him, or even took much notice, when he’d argue cases before the Supreme Court – [...]
David Ignatius, Marc Ambinder and Jeff Goldberg have accounts of a White House session on Iran that I also attended yesterday. I tend to agree more with David’s assessment than with Jeff’s: we are seeing real signs that the sanctions regime–far tougher than the Iranians anticipated–is having an impact on Iran and that a new [...]
