Miscellany
Morning Must Reads: Sequel
- Obama’s Mideast address will not be a sequel to the 2009 Cairo speech.
- Dominique Strauss-Kahn resigns as head of the IMF.
- From the magazine: David Plouffe tries to harness social media, the Iowa caucuses are a scam and Tim Pawlenty’s nice-guy candidacy.
Birtherism Death Watch Jumps the Shark
The Obama campaign is sending around e-mails hocking birth certificate merch and Esquire is running bad satire on Jerome Corsi.
Morning Must Reads: Immediate
- Obama will announce new aid in Mideast speech Thursday.
- Another poll bears out the simple dynamic of the GOP’s proto-presidential primary: Until some other candidates become better-known, Romney is alone atop the pile.
- The barren field has drawn Texas Governor Rick Perry’s eye.
- Newt Gingrich backpedals furiously and calls Paul
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Two Words Can’t Solve the Health Care Entitlement Puzzle
So I open up The New York Times this morning to find heartening news from op-ed columnist Timothy Egan:
There is a very simple way to make Medicare whole through the end of this century, far less complicated, and more of a bargain in the long run than the bizarre Ryan plan.
That’s a relief!
Q&A: The White House Economic Team’s Departing Lefty
Jared Bernstein, the most prominent Manhattan School of Music alumnus on the White House economic team, has left his job as Vice President Biden’s chief economist. He was the most liberal member of the team, so it’s no …
Morning Must Reads: Change
- Mitt Romney raises $10 million and change in his Vegas phone-a-thon.
- Obama could run on the auto bailout — Romney might be right there with him.
- The President has a dearth of effective surrogates.
Regulation and Wittgenstein
1,000 Words
That’s New York Times columnist David Brooks on the phone and Newt Gingrich coming down the stairs behind him. One possible motivation for fleeing: “Some people are interesting, like Newt Gingrich, but Newt Gingrich is not going …
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Re: How to Make Regulation Work
In his post today, Mike Grunwald bravely admits that “regulation is tricky” and “I’m not entirely sure what I think about these problems.”
Here’s one way to think about: As a general rule, regulations that require large numbers of fallible human government employees to ferret out wrongdoing are destined not to work very well.
Q&A: Jon Huntsman
TIME talked to former ambassador to China and Republican presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman for a profile running in the May 23, 2011, issue of the magazine. Lightly edited excerpts from three separate interviews with Huntsman follow: