Not saying it couldn't be true, but there are other more obvious explanations...
Unemployment rates rose in the District, Maryland and Virginia in January, a shift that economists said could be a positive sign for the economy because it suggests that discouraged job-seekers are feeling more optimistic about their prospects and have resumed looking for work.
Thanks to all who have made contributions to this sucky blog. Got suddenly a bit busier with various things the last couple of days and haven't had as much time to tiptoe through the archives as I had planned, and am behind on my individual thank yous.
Nonetheless... thank you! The generosity of readers has long been a big reason I stick with this, even though I don't bring out the begging bowl very often.
WASHINGTON — Previously undisclosed e-mail messages turned over to the F.B.I. and Senate ethics investigators provide new evidence about Senator John Ensign’s efforts to steer lobbying work to the embittered husband of his former mistress and could deepen his legal and political troubles.
Mr. Ensign, Republican of Nevada, suggested that a Las Vegas development firm hire the husband, Douglas Hampton, after it had sought the senator’s help on several energy projects in 2008, according to e-mail messages and interviews with company executives.
I used to be somewhat sympathetic with residency requirements for public workers, but peoples' location choices depend on all kinds of things, including spousal and other family needs. Perhaps carrots, not sticks, are the better approach...
McDonnell’s pronouncement doesn’t make the anti-bias statement law, but says it must be obeyed in Virginia because such discrimination would be against the state and U.S. Constitutions.
The governor’s directive comes as the outcry increased against Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s opinion delivered to state college and university leaders last Thursday, saying that it was illegal for them to have policies that ban discrimination against gays without a mandate from the legislature.
Back in the good old days of blogging when reporters were Oh So Concerned with the idea that maybe some blogger would have some sort of undisclosed conflict of interest, I actually had to point out to one that their op-ed contributors don't exactly have their conflicts vetted and disclosed to the degree that they keep demanding of bloggers.
The "blogger ethics panel" joke came about because journalists would have panels on such subjects, and in the process come up with absurd standards for bloggers which didn't exist, either in theory or practice, for anyone else in the universe. Because we were that important and powerful and... rich, oh yes, rich.
I don't think it really mattered in the particular deep background briefing I attended, but I do agree with Kevin that while the no direct quote rule does have value in that it makes people talk a bit more freely without just robotically spewing talking point, the no attribution rule is a bit more pointless.
But having said that, I attend these things occasionally when asked (not that I'm asked much more often than occasionally) not because I want to incorporate this kind of thing into the blogging I do, but just because I get to learn about how these things are conducted. It's more field trip to the Treasury to see what goes on at these things than a strong interest in listening to and reporting on the substance of them.
The other value is that while these are notionally Q&A sessions, they're also two way conversations and it's a bit useful for people in power to get some pushback from a different set of actors than the usual group of DC reporters.
I think Republicans have successfully convinced most of our media that no matter what they actually do, they cut taxes and Democrats raise them. More than that, taxes have been equated to the "top marginal tax rate." And, neat trick, even though Ryan's plan raises taxes on 90% of Americans, it cuts taxes because it cuts revenue! So they'll sell their raising-taxes-on-most-Americans plan as a tax cut plan. profit!
Little Tommy Friedman has written another of his "it's up to them" columns. I've never quite found a way to express how inane this view of how the world works. It's as if Little Tommy Friedman - and many like him - think there's some pure costless process whereby what's deep in the soul of the Iraqi people is mapped onto some national policy outcome, instead of a somewhat corrupt set of imperfect impolitical institutions operating in a country in a degree of turmoil which very imperfectly reflects the desires of the people.
Tom thinks that if the people want a pony enough, the pony will come. Tom also thinks it matters if he keeps clapping.
I wish I could say that that was inevitable. It is not. But it is no longer unattainable, and I for one will keep rooting for it to happen.
I don't have any great insight into the desirability or practicality of getting feds into municipal lending, but more stimulus and more supertrains are obviously things I can get on board with. Meyerson:
A life spent stranded in Los Angeles traffic can nonetheless yield its epiphanies. One such moment came in November 2008, when L.A. County's beleaguered commuters voted to increase their sales tax by half a cent over the next 30 years to build an electric rail system that could speed their journeys and clean their air.
Now, Los Angeles is asking Washington for loans -- not grants, mind you -- to be repaid with that sales tax revenue, to accelerate said construction so that it can be done in one decade rather than three. In other words, to help finance a major environmental and stimulus program that won't add to the federal deficit. It's an idea so novel that Washington's initial reaction was befuddlement.
I had said at the Treasury meeting I had went to that a senior Treasury official had said they were moving fairly soon to some sort of writedown program. Apparently not so much.
Except that once the meeting was over, its main architect, Treasury flack Andrew Williams, emailed Nasiripour to walk that particular idea back, saying that Treasury was NOT (his all caps) going to do anything “major” in terms of principal write-downs, and that any moves in that direction would be no more than “tweaks”.
As Felix says at the link, their strategy has been to prop up home prices enough to keep bank balances looking nice until the economy rebounds and home prices sustain themselves. It might work, but I don't think it's a particularly equitable way to go about things and nor am I especially convinced that it will work. And...exactly what does "work" mean?
David Paterson will become the massa...who gets to appoint whoever gets to take Massa's place. So, for the first time in his life, Paterson's gonna be a massa. Interesting, interesting.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts today called President Obama's remarks about the court during the State of the Union message "very troubling."
Speaking to a law school class today in Alabama, Roberts said while anyone is free to criticize the court, the sight of a president dressing down the justices in front of Congress was "very troubling."
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