Read Stuff, You Should

Lots and lots of great links for your weekend reading. First, though: hey, everybody: stop complaining about the Palin emails! C'mon; it's apt to produce a lot of fun stuff, and it's not preventing people from covering Libya or the budget or health care or whatever; it's just replacing Newt 2012! or Weiner's foibles or really silly speculation about how formidable Rudy Giuliani is gonna be this time around really really we swear it. Okay? Also: over at Greg's place I'm calling for Harry Reid to threaten to go nuclear over executive branch confirmations, and I have a new column at TNR arguing that the goofy 2010 Republican primary results (O'Donnell, Angle, Miller) don't mean that they'll go and nominate Bachmann or Cain in 2012.

On to the good stuff. Plenty today; I've fallen behind.

1. The New York Times is giving the Best Blogger Ever, Ta-Nehisi Coates, an op-ed column over the summer! Excellent. They will, obviously, be totally nuts if they don't beg him to stay on as a permanent thing.

2. Budget and the economy: Jared Bernstein on the NASTIE's; Paul Krugman on core inflation; crowding out, from Matt Yglesias; Annie Lowrey on the Bush tax cuts; and The Economic Outlook as of May 2011 as seen by Brad DeLong.

3. Health care: how age cohorts matter in the fight over Medicare, from Mark Schmidt; a reported piece from Politico's Sarah Kliff about GOP governors who are cooperating with ACA (and yes, I agree with whoever -- Chait maybe? -- who recently mentioned that Politico is doing some excellent work); less encouraging news from Austin Frakt on implementation of exchange subsidies; Krugman, again, on Vouchercare; Adam Bonica on partisanship and health care professionals; and a comprehensive defense of Canada's health care system, from Aaron Carroll.

4. Fred Kaplan's update on Afghanistan. Always must-read.

5. Fascinating essay by Andrew Sullivan on the GOP.

6. Speaking of the Republicans, how about some pieces on the GOP 2012ers? Start with two excellent comments (pre-meltdown, or at least pre-total-meltdown) from Jonathan Zasloff and Andrew Sprung. Also, a good explanation of Huntsman's irrelevance from Nate Silver; I'm not sure Steve Kornacki is right about Sarah Palin, but he might be -- and I love the image of Palin 2012 as post-scandal Gary Hart; Ed Kilgore with a good overview of Perry's chances; and Conor Friedersdorf on Pawlenty. By the way, I really need a good Pawlenty nickname, and I hate T-Paw. Any ideas?

7. Brendan Nyhan asks where the Obama scandals are; Anna Palmer reports on Darrell Issa's slow start.

8. Dylan Matthews points out that everything about the judiciary is (properly) political.

9. Think birtherism is gone? Make sure you read Sarah Posner to stay up to date.

10. I'm sure you know that I'm absolutely loving Erik Loomis's series on the Most Prominent Politicians From Each State. Here's Delaware. Awesome.

I think that should be enough for now. Enjoy!