links for 2010-02-18

Question: Do white people lower their heads in collective shame when they listen to Sarah Palin? Is there a moment where white folks shake their heads in mass and say to themselves, "Lord, I wish she weren't white?"

When you hear "stimulus," it references this $787 billion spending bill, and it contains the following key provisions.

1) Financial assistance to states that were about to fire scores of workers, from firefighters to police officers to teachers, as well as an extension of unemployment benefits and generous COBRA health insurance subsidies. 2) Spending on new infrastructure and manufacturing: those newly smoothed roads and highways on your commute to work, along with spending on transit and green energy technology. 3) The largest middle class tax cut in American history — $288 billion in tax relief which, I might add, every Republican (save for three) voted against.

TARP, on the other hand, is not the stimulus.