thursday reads

Dwane Powell / Raleigh News and Observer



"The US healthcare system is considered a dysfunctional mess," writes Ezekial Emanuel, chairman of the department of clinical bioethics, in a recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.


A carefully constructed compromise on a draft law governing Iraq’s rich oil fields, agreed to in February after months of arduous talks among Iraqi political groups, appears to have collapsed. The apparent breakdown comes just as Congress and the White House are struggling to find evidence that there is progress toward reconciliation and a functioning government here.


The US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, expressed long-term interest in running for the US presidency when he was stationed in Baghdad, according to a senior Iraqi official who knew him at that time.


CENTCOM Chief Fallon: Petraeus is "an ass-kissing little chickenshit"


Charlie Savage on how the Bush-Cheney legal team’s strategy of picking presidential lawyers to fill court vacancies has been an integral part of the groundwork it has laid for a long-term expansion of White House power.


Lawyers, Guns and Money: The Friedman Unit, circa 1877