Links

Here are links to various news stories from the past week:

Bill Moyers' interview with former insurance company executive Wendell Potter (a real eye-opener).

Here's a conundrum from the inspector general's report on Bush/Cheney era spying programs--Did the threat assessments drive the surveillance program, or, Alice-in-Wonderland like, was it the other way around?

Here's a review of Andrew Bacevich's latest book, The Limits of American Empire.

Obama increases pressure on Congress re health care legislation.

Keynes and the Efficient Markets Hypothesis.

The Daily Show on Palin resignation (I hadn't seen this before--it's hilarious).

Not wanting to be left out of the meltdown on the right, wingnut bloggers --never mind; see for yourself.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) catches hoof-and-mouth disease at the Sotomayor hearings.

The House of Representatives release of its version of the health care reform bill.

Here's a chart showing an international comparison of unemployment benefits.

Eric Martin on Obama's Afghanistan conundrum.

Eric Martin, contra Peter Bergen, agrees that historical analogies shed little light on the situation in Afghanistan.

Ben Stein seems to have problems with ethics.

The GOP presented a confusing chart on the floor of Congress Friday, supposedly illustrating that the Obama health care plan is complicated. No fooling... Here I thought a bill reforming interactions between doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, patients, labs, etc., making up a significant portion of the economy was going to fit on the back of a bubble gum wrapper. In response, The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn offers his own chart--of the system we have now.

Ezra Klein interviews conservative economist Bruce Bartlett on taxes and health care reform.

Conservatives, says Kevin Drum, are trapped by their own ideology on health care.

An article in Parameters, the U.S. Army War College Quarterly, argues that tying defense spending to GDP is a bad idea.

Wingnut blogger predictions about Iraq in 2003 didn't turn out very well.

The myth of conservative judicial restraint.

Matthew Yglesias on economic recovery based on recapitalization via profits.

He illustrates with a chart showing the percentage of total income earned by the top 1% of the population, 1913-2008.

The mechanism proposed to keep costs down in the health care reform bill.

Intellectual irresponsibility test (wingnut bloggers jump off cliff, chapter ???).

Fasten your seatbelts for a jobless recovery.

Yoo on Yoo.

Help for one time homeowners.

Buchanan being Buchanan.

Jon Stewart on Goldman.