Obama Shrugs Off Clinton Plagiarism Charge

clipped from blog.washingtonpost.com Sen. Barack Obama made clear this afternoon that he is decidedly unimpressed with the flap over his decision to borrow a few memorable lines about speechmaking from Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D). Talking with reporters at a titanium plant near Youngstown, Obama said Patrick is a friend and supporter who suggested the lines in answer to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's implication that he offers the nation little more than a pretty voice. All things considered, Obama said, he should have given Patrick credit for the lines he delivered Saturday night at the Wisconsin Democratic Party's dinner in Milwaukee. "Well, look, I was on the stump," Obama said when asked why he didn't attribute the lines. "He had suggested we use these lines. I thought they were good lines. I'm sure I should have. Didn't this time."

In Wisconsin, Obama has edge over Clinton

clipped from www.marketwatch.com While Clinton, the Democratic senator from New York, is behind rival U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., in polls leading up to Tuesday's Wisconsin primary, she could pull off an upset, some pundits say. Obama leads Clinton in pre-primary polls by four or five percentage points, well within the margin of error. And despite her claims that she's setting up a firewall in Ohio and Texas to stop what is becoming an Obama juggernaut, Clinton will be hitting the stump in the Badger State to make sure she at least captures a sizable chunk of the state's 92 delegates and super-delegates. Wisconsin is a diverse state, known for its progressive politics. With an elaborate public school and college network, the state's electorate is highly educated and has large college-age populations in the capital of Madison as well as other cities throughout the state. There's also a significant working-class demographic in urban centers such as Milwaukee, which once elected a socialist mayor.

Pushing on a string

clipped from krugman.blogs.nytimes.com Ben Bernanke has cut interest rates a lot since last summer. But can he make a difference? Or is he just, as the old line has it, pushing on a string? Here’s the Fed funds target rate (red line) — which is what the Fed actually controls — versus the interest rate on Baa corporate bonds (blue line), which is probably a better guide to what matters for actual business spending. It’s pretty grim. Basically, deteriorating credit conditions have offset everything the Fed has done. Doubleplus ungood.

Jaws Trailer

clipped from www.youtube.com

Obama and the L-Word

clipped from blog.washingtonpost.com It may no longer be surprising to watch so many young people, African Americans and well-off Democrats fall so hard for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama as he battles for the Democratic presidential nomination, but it has been fascinating to see so many conservatives swooning over him lately. Peggy Noonan, the Reagan-Bush speechwriter, calls him "thoughtful" and praises his "classy campaign." George Will, the columnist and television pundit, describes him as "an adult aiming to reform the real world rather than an adolescent fantasizing mock-heroic 'fights' against fictitious villains in a left-wing cartoon version of this country." Peter Wehner, the former Bush White House aide, calls Obama "a well-grounded, thoughtful, decent man" whom Republicans "would find it hard to generate much enthusiasm in opposing." Morning Cheat Sheet

How Bad is the ISM Report?

clipped from krugman.blogs.nytimes.com The ISM non-manufacturing report came in today, and it’s bad. As I suggested in an earlier post, we should take this seriously: the same report called the upturn in employment in summer 2003, so the fact that it has fallen off a cliff should worry us. But how bad is it? The latest report has an employment diffusion index of 43.9 (50 means no change, anything less than 50 means job contraction). Here’s the historical relationship between the index (horizontal axis) and the actual monthly change in employment, in thousands (vertical axis), data since July 1997. If this report is at all right, we’re in serious recession territory. Add: As explained above, the horizontal axis is the ISM employment index, the vertical axis is the change in nonfarm employment over the following month. Fwiw, the best-fit relationship says that this month’s report portends a loss of 137,000 jobs next month. You don’t want to take that too seriously, but it’s appropriate to cry “eek”.

Record number of soldiers committed suicide last year

clipped from blogs.usatoday.com A record number of active-duty soldiers killed themselves last year, according to The Washington Post. The paper cites an internal Army study that shows 121 soldiers committed suicide in 2007. That's a 20% increase over the prior year The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have placed severe stress on the Army, caused in part by repeated and lengthened deployments," the paper reports. "Historically, suicide rates tend to decrease when soldiers are in conflicts overseas, but that trend has reversed in recent years. From a suicide rate of 9.8 per 100,000 active-duty soldiers in 2001 -- the lowest rate on record -- the Army reached an all-time high of 17.5 suicides per 100,000 active-duty soldiers in 2006 The number of attempted suicides among soldiers is six times higher than it was The Associated Press is quoting preliminary figures that show more than a quarter of the suicides took place in Iraq Click here for the warning signs that suggest someone is considering suicide