Worst. Talking Point. Ever.
If this is the best the Democrats can come up with, they are in deep, deep trouble:Republicans argue that an unemployment rate higher than it has been in more than a quarter of a century is evidence that the Democratic agenda isn't putting Americans back to work. They say the situation will be made worse if Congress and President Obama enact a health care overhaul that will require $1 trillion in tax hikes and entitlement cuts to expand insurance coverage. "Ten-point-two now makes it hard for the majority to sell their agenda," said Rep. Dave Camp of Michigan, the top Republican on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. "All I kno

The Evil That Men Do
Kevin Drum has a powerful letter from someone who witnessed the carnage at Fort Hood:This was premeditated.  This wasn't VBC again.  That guy snapped, not this one.  He was so damn calm when he was shooting.  Methodical.  And he was moving tactically.  The Army really is diverse and we really do love all our own.  We signed up to be shot at but not at home.  Not unarmed.  No one should ever see what the inside of that medical SRP building looked like.  I suppose that's what VA Tech looked like.  Except they didn't have soldiers coming from everywher

America and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Jobs Numbers
So headline unemployment now stands at 10.2%, higher than forecast.  Another 10 million or so workers are working "part time for economic reasons", meaning they want to work more hours, but can't get them.  And 2.4 million are "marginally attached to the labor force"--they have looked for work in the past 12 months, and say they want a job, but have stopped looking too hard because there doesn't seem to be anything out there.This figure is likely to get worse before it gets better.  Corporations tend to want some evidence of sustainable recovery before they start hiring workers who will have expensive startup costs and will be traumatic to fire if there's another

Department of Awful Statistics
Incidentally, while reading the Longman article, I came across this passage:Worse, even when strong scientific consensus emerges about appropriate protocols and treatments, the health-care industry is extremely slow to implement them. For example, there is little controversy over the best way to treat diabetes; it starts with keeping close track of a patient's blood sugar levels. Yet if you have diabetes, your chances are only one-out-four that your health care system will actually monitor your blood sugar levels or teach you how to do it. According to a recent RAND Corp. study, this oversight causes an estimated 2,600 diabetics to go blind every year, and anther 29,

Revisiting the Achievements of the Veterans Health Administration
Back in 2005, Phillip Longman wrote an article in the Washington Monthly, touting the strides the Veterans Administration had made in improving quality.  Since then, it has become the model for a fair number of reformers, who frequently cite its ability to control costs and coordinate care as proof that we should move towards such a system nationwide.I was thus interested to learn that the Congressional Budget Office had issued a report on the VA's quality initiatives.  I've been meaning to get around to reading it for wee