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Today the president signed legislation forbidding the Federal Reserve Bank from considering effects on employment in setting interest rates. The obscure provision of the banking bill was included with strong behind-the-scenes support from corporate lobbyists, who have argued that employment effect estimates are highly uncertain, that many factors affect employment, and that only predictive models, [...]
Archive for June, 2009
June 23rd, 2009
Category: Iran
Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment says that Obama’s conciliatory approach removed the pressure Iranian political actors felt to sustain national unity in the face of foreign attack.
June 23rd, 2009
Category: Iran
No, he’s not one of us. But one of us wouldn’t be a player in Iranian politics. Moussavi represents a funamental challenge to the current tyranny. If he wins, he wins with the support of all those marchers-in-the street, who on average are much more anti-clerical than he is. Conditions in Iran, and Iran’s relations with the world, will be better if Moussavi and Rafsanjani pull off their coup than if Khamene’i and Ahmad-nejad manage to cling to power.
June 23rd, 2009
Category: Democrats in Congress, Health Care
Simple message: no public option, no contribution. Period.
June 23rd, 2009
Category: Health Care
How about learning to get pigs to grow organs for human transplant?
June 22nd, 2009
Category: Iran
I’d be a little more cheered by Mark’s report of potential news from Iran if the leading vessel for reform were not Hashemi Rafsanjani.
June 22nd, 2009
Category: Iran
Eurasianet says that Rafsanjani already has the votes to displace Khamene’i and revoke the rigged election results.
June 22nd, 2009
Category: Torture
The massacre of Glencoe was 300 years ago, but some things never change: people will do things for the imagined good of their party or their country they’d never do for personal gain.