Weekend Link Roundup

by Nirmal Mankani :: Filed Under Daily Briefing :: January 12th, 2009 @ 1:08 am EST

We read stuff so you don’t have to.

John Cole: At What Point Will She Shoulder Some Blame? - Sarah Palin refuses to accept responsibility for her unpopularity, and comes off looking even worse than she did before. It’s getting to the point where she’s complaining about how her complaining is portrayed in the media. Very meta.

ABC’s This Week - Following up on our discussion about holding Bush accountable, Obama indicated to George Stephanopoulos that he was hesitant to prosecute the Bush administration for illegal torture and wiretapping. Even though it’s the most popular question on change.gov. Go people power!

NYT: White House Loses Legal Fight on Visitor Logs - Also on the subject of Bush accountability, a federal judge ruled against the Bush administration’s attempt to keep its visitor logs secret. Knowing who visited the White House expands our understanding of improper influence in politics.

Dean Baker: The Washington Post, Which Said the Economy Was Just Fine, Says That We Can’t Fix Health Care - The Washington Post, putting it down for the status quo since 1877, argues that we can’t do much about rising health care expenses. Of course, their op-ed completely ignores that the United States pays more per capita on healthcare than any other Western country, with considerably worse life expectancy.

MyDD: A Drupal-based DailyKos - Shai Sachs argues for the development of a Drupal-based Daily Kos clone that progressive bloggers can adapt when building their sites. Saving SoapBlox is an admirable endeavor, and the service is a key piece of progressive infrastructure. Still, it’s not safe to put so much power in the hands of one individual or even institution, or a proprietary platform that few people use. An open-source solution would be a powerful alternative.

Digby: Fiscal Madness - Remember how CNN unfairly attacked a stimulus proposal from the U.S. Conference of Mayors? They’re at it again. This time, they’re airing propaganda that uses the size of the federal deficit to argue against social investment. Of course the deficit is worrisome, but these stories skew our sense of budget priorities and unfairly undermine the case for a desperately needed stimulus package.

Politico: Sen. Voinovich to announce retirement - This makes four Republican retirement announcements — it’s no fun being in the minority. Barring a massive public shift toward Republicans (which is absolutely within the realm of possibility), the 2010 Senate map looks great for Democrats.

California’s Proposition 8: What Happened, and What Does the Future Hold? - This report dispels some of the myths about black support for Prop 8 in California. It points out that the NEP’s figure for black support conflicted with other post-election surveys, and that much of the difference in support for Prop 8 across race can probably actually be attributed to religiosity. I was going to look at the same thing once the NEP released the actual survey data, but always happy when someone does the work for me.

Firedoglake: LGBT Hosts on SNL - We need more of them. Neil Patrick Harris is hilariously awesome.

Tom Raum: GOP urging restraint in stimulus debate - When Republicans were in power, they started with a surplus and ended with a $1.2 trillion deficit. Now that Obama is President-elect, they’re suddenly urging restraint.

Jay Rosen: Audience Atomization Overcome: Why the Internet Weakens the Authority of the Press - He explains, “Jon Stewart exploits for laughs what I called ‘the difference between making news and making sense.’”

Plus there was an argument between Nate Silver and Greg Mankiw over the stimulus.

The following articles aren’t strictly from this weekend, and I’m going to refrain from commenting on them because of my employment situation, but the labor merger talks are fascinating: NYT broke the story, Harold Meyerson elaborated, and Marc Ambinder has some additional gossip.

Finally, Obama hits up the legendary Ben’s Chili Bowl.

I’m sure I missed a lot of interesting stuff — what have you been reading?