Tim Fernholz

A series of attempts to put Obama’s slap-in-the-face moments in perspective. I’m told being contrarian is good for your career. Brian Beutler: Surely Gregg’s desire to replace himself with somebody who will often oppose his new boss’s agenda is evidence of his deep commitment to the administration, the cabinet, and the agency he appears poised […]

Now the Congressional Budget Office has scored the Senate version of the stimulus and reports that 78 percent of the bill will be spent by October 2010 (that is, over the next two fiscal years). This is faster than the scoring of the House version that clocked in at 64 percent over the same period, […]

Last week, Mark Goldberg had an important piece here at TAP about the current situation in Darfur, site of a genocide and an on-going ethnic conflict and humanitarian crisis, which argues that the Obama administration is about to confront its first opportunity to change the dynamics of the conflict there. The International Criminal Court will […]

Like Andrew, I do have to note that the public shaming of 23-year-old Michael Phelps for the sin of getting caught smoking marijuana is entirely ridiculous. You have to love that the Times article makes sure to note that he was inhaling — not just a Clintonian half-smoke. I recall our current president opining on […]

I love reading conservative economist Greg Mankiw’s blog. Sometimes he makes interesting points on economics, but sometimes he just puts up weird little discussion points that are very easy to rebut. Here, for instance, he and a colleague confused (deliberately?) the purpose of the TARP — fixing the financial system — with the economic stimulus […]

Let’s take a moment to breathe a sigh of relief that the Iraqi elections seem to have gone off without major violence, corruption, or the elevation of extremists (although the final results won’t be known for a week). For those of us who want to see our occupation conclude and soon, it would be churlish […]

A source in the Senate passes on the following info: Part of the hypothetical deal to make Republican Senator Judd Gregg Commerce Secretary is the appointment, by New Hampshire’s Democratic Governor John Lynch, of a moderate Republican to his seat for the last two years. The potential choice? Former Republican governor (and head of Republicans […]

There’s been back-and-forth reporting over the last week or so about Dennis Ross, who has hypothetically been chosen as the Special Envoy to Iran for the new administration; Laura Rozen rounds up the confusion here. In any case, let me express my hope that Ross is not appointed to this position. As Matt has noted, […]

David Brooks has a very bad column on the stimulus legislation today. The best part is his decision to rely on statements made by Larry Summers last September, well before we had an understanding of the depth of the economic crisis. Perhaps if congress and the Bush administration had followed Summers’ advice then, we wouldn’t […]