Blog: TAPPED

PRODUCTIVE. Over at Beat the Press today, Dean has two posts about productivity — one on misconceptions about the relative levels in U.S. vs. Europe, the other on the U.S.’s recent productivity slowdown — that are worth a look. –Sam Rosenfeld

JUST POSTED ON TAP ONLINE: THE “LAWFARE” SCARE. Deborah Pearlstein discusses the latest iteration of a bogus right-wing critique of legal challenges to the president’s war on terror policies. –The Editors

BOY, SOMEBODY’S MAD. Speaking of tricky, The New York Times‘s Jodi Kantor reports this morning that Barack Obama disinvited his pastor and spiritual mentor from speaking at his Feb. 10 announcement in Springfield on the recommendation of campaign consultants concerned that the pastor would be perceived as too radical. The pastor, for his part, seems […]

OBAMA ELABORATED. Nick Kristof has a lovely column (TS) on Barack Obama this morning in which the senator from Illinois talks about his time in Indonesia: He spent four years as a child in Indonesia and attended schools in the Indonesian language, which he still speaks. �I was a little Jakarta street kid,� he said […]

MORE ABOUT NAVAL AVIATION THAN YOU PROBABLY WANTED TO KNOW. One of the most promising elements of the F-35 (Joint Strike Fighter) is the capability that one variant will have for V/STOL, or vertical/short take off and landing. The gap in capability between conventional carrier aircraft and land based fighters closed a long time ago. […]

THE RIGHTS STUFF. Via Women’s E-News, a group called MADRE, which focuses on international women’s rights, is releasing a report that shows rapes in Iraq, once considered a taboo, are on the rise, as are “honor killings,” the tradition of killing a woman who has been accused of bringing shame to her family. The group […]

RUDY’S DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD. So there’s no doubt that Rudy derives a certain degree of his star power from the fact that he honed his personality and publicity skills in one of the media capitals of the world. But I’m struck by the sheer level of skepticism reporters I chat with evince towards his chances, even […]

THE VA THEY AIN’T. Reader RN writes in to say: Walter Reed is an Army hospital, not a VA facility. As an active duty soldier, the care I received at Evans Army Community Hospital (the Army hospital in Colorado Springs) was best described as mediocre; the care I’ve received at the VA Medical Center in […]

REMEMBER THE REED. The interesting thing about this ongoing Walter Reed story is that veterans services are finally taking the center stage after years of low-profile status. A spot on the Veterans Affairs Committee is something to be sought, especially if you’re from a moderate district. This is one instance of investigative journalism actually bringing […]

FEMINIST LABOR POLITICS. This weekend, The New York Times Magazine chimed in to a growing conversation about women�s work-family balance with a piece arguing that increasing government support for childcare and health care will encourage women to have more babies and start younger, thus staving off a �baby drought.� I�m unconvinced by the argument that […]