What’s this about another gubmint shutdown? It is just the echoes of mind?
Let’s make this a government shutdown open thread.
by DougJ| 61 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads, Readership Capture
What’s this about another gubmint shutdown? It is just the echoes of mind?
Let’s make this a government shutdown open thread.
by DougJ| 40 Comments
This post is in: Black Jimmy Carter, Our Failed Media Experiment
by DougJ| 63 Comments
This post is in: Pink Himalayan Salt
To paraphrase commenter sb, none of you are going to want to hear this. I’m not sure I even like typing it. But Megan McArdle has an excellent post about why life is different for poor black children then it is for middle-aged white men with sinecures at Forbes. It goes on forever, so there’s probably some crazy stuff in it, but it genuinely makes a lot of good points. Credit where credit is due.
That sun is gonna shine in my back door somedayPost + Comments (63)
by John Cole| 81 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics
I shouldn’t be, but I am speechless:
Data on sales of previously owned U.S. homes from 2007 through October this year will be revised down next week because of double counting, indicating a much weaker housing market than previously thought.
The National Association of Realtors said a benchmarking exercise had revealed that some properties were listed more than once, and in some instances, new home sales were also captured.
“All the sales and inventory data that have been reported since January 2007 are being downwardly revised. Sales were weaker than people thought,” NAR spokesman Walter Malony told Reuters.
“We’re capturing some new home data that should have been filtered out and we also discovered that some properties were being listed in more than one list.”
Is everyone in this industry innumerate? I know this shouldn’t surprise me, given that these are the same people who thought people making 14k a year could handle a 400k loan.
by DougJ| 323 Comments
This post is in: Music, Readership Capture
Reader Dan sends along a song about the War on Christmas.
So now it’s time for one of my favorite topics: which holiday season song do you hate the most? I agree that objectively, the Paul McCartney “Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas” song is the worst, but I’m not hearing it much yet, so I don’t hate it the most right now. I want to specify that holiday season song includes anything that is played only this time of year, so it includes Frosty The Snowman, The Dradle Dreidel song (both of of which I like), and the holiday season song I dislike the most right now….that Peanuts holiday song that goes doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo doo-doo, I don’t know what they’re saying. I’m not trying to be contrarian here, that song bugs me.
I guess I’ve never understood Peanuts. It may go over my head, like Wilco and Italo Calvino apparently do, but I don’t understand why a comic about kids should be so melancholy. I mean, they’ll have plenty of time to be depressed and neurotic when they grow up and realize how crappy everything is, right?
Runner up for most annoying holiday season song: “I Know That This Will Be A Very Special Christmas For Me”.
What are your most hated holiday season songs?
by Kay| 56 Comments
This post is in: #notintendedtobeafactualstatement, Assholes, Blatant Liars and the Lies They Tell
Governor Walker has fallen in with the wrong crowd:
Another major shoe has dropped in the John Doe investigation of Gov.Scott Walker’s current and former aides. On Tuesday, authorities arrested Andrew P. Jensen Jr., a commercial real estate broker with Boerke Co. and a past president of theCommercial Association of Realtors-Wisconsin. Fran McLaughlin, spokesman for Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr., confirmed that Jensen was behind bars Tuesday night. But McLaughlin said no one had filed a criminal complaint against the 50-year-old Milwaukee resident.
The sheriff’s website states that charges are pending against Jensen.
Jensen was a minor contributor to Walker’s gubernatorial campaign, donating $850. Boerke Co. employees gave a total of $12,150. Insiders told No Quarter that he was arrested after refusing to cooperate with the long-running John Doe investigation by Milwaukee County prosecutors.
Prosecutors launched the investigation in May 2010 – around the time Darlene Wink left her county job as Walker’s constituent services coordinator. She quit shortly after admitting that she had frequently posted political comments online on Journal Sentinel stories and blogs while on the county clock. Authorities later took her work computer and executed a search warrant of her home in August 2010. They also took the work computer of Tim Russell, a former Walker campaign staffer who was then working as county housing director.
Sources have told the Journal Sentinel that the probe, which initially looked at campaign activity by Walker staffers, has moved in a number of directions since then.
Since then, No Quarter reported that Walker’s current spokesman, Cullen Werwie, who worked on the governor’s campaign, was given immunity to testify in the John Doe probe. Also receiving immunity was Republican operative Rose Ann Dieck.
More recently, a grant of immunity was considered for an unnamed person about four or five weeks ago, according to former Appeals Judge Neal Nettesheim, who is overseeing the investigation. The person sought to have the immunity grant performed in secret, but Nettesheim determined it had to be done in open court. The person then appealed.
The District 1 Court of Appeals denied the request to rule that the immunity hearing be held in secret, saying the unnamed person had not shown that Nettesheim had a plain legal duty to do so. Quoting a past Supreme Court decision, the three-judge panel wrote, “It is clear the policy is that the public ought to know who is given immunity from prosecution.”
Walker has maintained that he is not concerned about the investigation because he has followed the high standards given to him by his parents.
by Kay| 47 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics, Election 2012
This is a really popular provision:
The number of young adults lacking medical coverage has shrunk by 2.5 million since the new health care overhaul law took effect, according to a new analysis the Obama administration is to release Wednesday.
That drop is 2½ times as large as the drop indicated by previous government and private estimates from earlier this year, which showed about 1 million Americans ages 19-25 had gained coverage.
Administration officials said they now have more data. They say they’re also slicing the numbers more precisely than the government usually does, trying to pinpoint the impact of a popular provision in an otherwise politically divisive law.
Under the health overhaul, children can remain on their parents’ health insurance plans until they turn 26, and families have flocked to sign up young adults making the transition to work in a challenging economic environment. But the fate of President Barack Obama’s signature domestic accomplishment remains uncertain, with the Supreme Court scheduled to hear a constitutional challenge next year, and Republican presidential candidates vowing to repeal it.
I want Sherrod Brown to do ads in Ohio where real people who have benefitted under the ACA appear and talk about that. I think the only way we’re going to hear any ordinary person is if candidates buy time.