It depends on how you define the tax rate:

Jared Bernstein — former economic adviser to Pres. Obama and now writing a must-read blog at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities — responds to Paul Krugman’s earlier column (emphasis is mine):

Right-wingers love to use the phrase “learned helplessness” to describe the terrible consequences of extending unemployment benefits for still-jobless Americans. In this narrative, helping jobless people to survive in an economy that is not creating jobs teaches them not to look for work because it’s so much easier to sit on the sofa at home watching Judge Judy while you await the $300-a-week government check that supports you and your family just as fine as did the $420-a-week...

Wild animals never kill for sport. Man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures is amusing in itself. James A. Froude English historian (1818 – 1894)

All or most of them were women and children. The lethal strikes took place in Helmand province. Local Afghan authorities are apparently saying that 12 of the deaths are children, two are women, and six others were injured. Hamid Karzai, in condemning the killings, gave a different breakdown: 10 children, two women, and two men.

From NPR: “Gil Scott-Heron, Poet and Musician, Has Died.”

Ezra Klein calls it the “now more than ever” plan:

I agree with Robert Stacy McCain. Don’t let it go to your head. I promise you, it will never happen again.

The nation’s three biggest cities did not even make the list. Very disappointing.

The updated number of Joplin, Missouri, residents killed by last Sunday’s massive tornado is 132; 156 people are still unaccounted for. Joplin authorities say the bulldozers will not come out until every missing person is found.

Karl Rove thinks Republicans need a more “populist” narrative on Medicare (emphasis is mine):

It’s denial, of course.

And the volcanic lava flow that erupted in response to Pres. Obama’s outrageous assertion that Israel does not have the right to permanently annex the Palestinian land that it has illegally occupied since seizing it in the 1967 Six-Day War, continues, via the Wall Street Journal (emphasis is mine): Mr. Obama got some applause Sunday by calling for a “non-militarized” Palestinian state. But how does that square with his comment, presumably applicable to a future Palestine, that...

Another blithering idiot decides he’s qualified to run for President of the United States.

Andrew McCarthy accuses Pres. Obama of “borderline treachery” for telling Israel that a future Palestinian state must be drawn along Israel’s original 1967 borders, also called “the Green Line.” Here is a chunk of what he writes (emphasis is mine):

Forgive me this self-indulgence, everyone. It does not happen often.

Before you buy another IPhone, or any IPhone if you are a first purchaser, read this article about almost a dozen suicides at the company in China that makes IPhones. The article is dated September 9, 2010, and the horror it describes happened in August 2010, but this is the first I’ve heard of it. And the only reason I heard about it now is because I am on TechRepublic‘s mailing list. The company’s initial public response to the events of August 2010 was, in the words of the author...

Today makes it official:

I sure think it is. Wish we had us some of it in this country.

Yesterday, I noted the ironic metaphor contained in the comments of the Palestinian and Israeli responses to George Mitchell’s resignation. In the first of two paragraphs I quoted from the New York Times account of that resignation, Fatah’s senior foreign affairs person blamed Israeli intransigence for the failure of peace talks, and in the second, a spokesperson for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, blamed the Palestinians. After quoting the paragraphs, I wrote:

Posted on Carole King’s Facebook page:

The two paragraphs come at the end of the New York Times‘ article about George Mitchell’s decision to step down from his position as U.S. envoy to the Middle East:

This is not a moral judgment; it is a biological fact. Someone needs to tell the Florida Senate.

Here is something interesting, from the National Catholic Reporter. John Boehner is a devout Catholic, but it seems that not all Catholic leaders are down with Boehner’s understanding of Catholic social teachings, and in the light of those teachings they would like him to reconsider his support for laws that eliminate programs that help the most vulnerable members of society. The following is part of a letter that a group of Catholic academics have sent to Rep. Boehner on the occasion of his...

Dick Cheney is still upset at the Obama administration’s decision to stop using some of the overt torture techniques pioneered by the previous administration: