Links, 11-17-11

After last week's article on the struggles of schools in Tennessee to implement new teacher evaluation reforms, and another one on similar challenges in Chicago, the NY Times editorial board weighed in almost immediately by encouraging Tennessee not to give up.

Rolling Stone asks how the Republican Party became the party of the rich in a piece that reviews all changes to the tax code since 1980 and compares the positions of current and former Republican leaders and legislators.

Time is winding down for the deficit panel, and some Republicans may be open to agreeing to revenue increases that would be determined, in detail, by tax-writing committees of Congress at a later date.

The Supreme Court has agreed to take on the health care bill.  The NY Times writes that most of the changes are already in motion, cementing a place in history regardless of the outcome . . . but also that, regardless of the decision, the individual mandate (which Obama opposed during the election) could eventually be the bill's downfall.

Newt Gingrich is now tied with or ahead of Mitt Romney in 3 of the last 5 polls, but The Economist is skeptical that Gingrich is anything more than the popular anti-Romney candidate this week.

Here's a good overview of many of the arguments on both sides regarding inequality.

Is the Penn State scandal a focusing event?  The Governor of PA thinks that the law regarding reporting of child abuse will change in the near future.

A new study asks whether countries with stronger safety nets encourage more new business start-ups.

David Brooks offers a sometimes-serious analysis of the types of inequality that are ok and not ok in the US.