Watching Morning Joe this morning I caught an interesting interview with Paula Broadwell the author of All In: The Education of General David Petraeus.
I’m fascinated by the military and the miltary mind so as soon as I get through the stack of books on my night table or the backlog in my Audible.com list I am certainly going to buy and read and/or listen to this book.
Despite my own progressive leanings I always felt the MoveOn.org attack on General Patreaus was both misguided and unjustified (the MoveOn.org ad controversy). I think David Petraeus is a great model of a ‘soldier’s soldier’.
Politics
- The incredibly shrinking bill for TARP – The Washington Post
The watchdog for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, SIGTARP, has issued its latest reporton the program. The two big takeaways: TARP’s support for the market is expected to last until 2017, and taxpayers are still owed $133 billion from the $475 billion bailout.
The stagnant economy is expected to slow down the pace of TARP repayments—which have totaled $278 billion so far—but the Congressional Budget Office ultimately expects the cost of TARP to taxpayers to be $34 billion.
The CBO’s latest figure is higher than its previous $19 billion price tag for TARP, due to increased estimates for the cost of bailing out AIG and General Motors. But it’s still significantly lower than previous estimates for the ultimate cost of the bailout to taxpayers…. [read on…]
- Poll: Americans Overwhelming Believe Ideology Drives Supreme Court Decisions | ThinkProgress A new poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation finds that three in four Americans believe that Supreme Court justices “sometimes let their own ideological views influence their decisions”:
- Romney Blasts Obama’s ‘Assaults’ on ‘Life’, ‘Religion’ and ‘Marriage’ | Right Wing Watch
Politics — Mitt Romney
- Mitt Romney approves this message! It sure does illustrate just how low he will go. Daily Kos: Mitt Romney should be embarrassed by his latest attack ad … because it sucks
- Carl Levin: Mitt Romney criticism of Obama defense budget not factual (+video) – CSMonitor.com
- Mitt Romney’s Money: Candidate Will Amend Financial Disclosures Released In August
Politics — Newt Gingrich
- How Newt Gingrich Gets Away with ‘Class Warfare’ and ‘Race Baiting’ – Conor Friedersdorf – Politics – The Atlantic
- Gingrich Rails Against ‘Destructive’ Obama, Dual Secular-Islamist Threat | Right Wing Watch
- Newt Gingrich gets mad – Ginger Gibson – POLITICO.com
- Bob Dole blasts Newt Gingrich in letter – The Washington Post
- Gingrich challenges Wolf Blitzer, and fails – POLITICO.com
- Voting Newt Off the Island Turns Out to be Surprisingly Hard | Mother Jones
It’s sort of fascinating watching the Republican establishment finally go nuclear on Newt Gingrich. As near as I can tell, pretty much everyone who actually served with or alongside Newt in the 90s hates his guts. But as long as he was just writing books and doing think tanky stuff, they were willing to let bygones be bygones. Ditto for the period when he was supposedly running for president but, in reality, was just conducting an innovative new kind of book tour.
But now that he has millions of dollars of Sheldon Adelson’s casino money and has even an outside chance of actually winning, the long knives are out. Bob Dole has a scorching attack here. The Drudge Report is now the We-Hate-Newt Report. Philip Klein launches a brutal broadside here. Suddenly everyone remembers the 90s again, and in particular how volcanically unstable Newt was…
[Right-wingers] think that listening to Newt is a hoot, and they love it when he gets the crowds wound up. The problem is that they never quite realized the crowd wasn’t in on the con. The rank-and-file actually took Newt seriously, and now party leaders have to figure out how to suck the fetid air back out of the Gingrich-inspired fever swamps without losing their core audience of old people and the white working class, who are voting for their side because they’re scared to death that Barack Obama is destroying western civilization. ]read on…]
The Economy & Economics
- Apple’s iPad and the Human Costs for Workers in China – NYTimes.com
- Should Americans Care About Conditions in Factories that Produce Apple’s iPhone? | Business | TIME.com
- Morning Joe blog – Rattner returns with charts: On Obama’s tax plan, SOTU, tax change for top 1%
Technology (Humor)
Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski
- Morning Joe blog – Brzezinski: Mika was bumptious, lively and interesting as a kid
Morning Joe’s Louis Burgdorf talks with former National Security Advisor to President Carter (and Mika’s father), Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, about his new book, why he likes to write in the morning, and what Mika was like as a kid.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
- Morning Joe blog – Dr. Brzezinski: I fear pressure in US to demonize the Chinese Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski joins Morning Joe to continue the discussion of his latest book “Strategic Vision,” how the U.S. should conduct its relationships with Europe and the East, why the U.S. should avoid a confrontation with China, and why starting or supporting a war with Iran doesn’t prove a leader is tough.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
