memeorandum: Is Piketty All Wrong? — Great buzz in the blogosphere … (Paul Krugman/New York Times)

4:45 PM ET, May 24, 2014

Top Items:

Beth Farnsworth / KEYT-TV:

Sheriff Confirms Seven Dead in Isla Vista Shootings — “Mass Murder Situation” — ISLA VISTA, Calif. - — Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown revealed new details about Friday night's drive by shootings in Isla Vista during a Saturday morning news conference, including a new death toll …

Discussion: CNN, Washington Post, No More Mister Nice Blog, The Other McCain, Hinterland Gazette, Scared Monkeys, Gawker, Pressing Issues, ThinkProgress, WGN-TV, The Mahablog, Mashable and NPR

Daily Mail:

‘I will slaughter every single blonde s**t I see’: Seven people killed as son of Hunger Games assistant director carries out drive-by shooting ‘because women rebuffed his advances and he was a virgin at 22’ — Rodger also died of gunshot wound to the head; authorities have not confirmed if it was self-inflicted

Discussion: Daily Kos, The Gateway Pundit, The Moderate Voice, BizPac Review, ABC News, Hinterland Gazette and TMZ.com

Paul Krugman / New York Times:

Is Piketty All Wrong? — Great buzz in the blogosphere over Chris Giles's attack on Thomas Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century. Giles finds a few clear errors, although they don't seem to matter much; more important, he questions some of the assumptions and imputations Piketty uses to deal …

Discussion: Power Line, Financial Times, Spectator and The Week

Financial Times:

Central bank blog … Welcome. If you have yet to register on FT.com you will be asked to do so before you begin to read FT blogs. However, our posts remain free. — Opinions on market-moving economics and central banks around the world. — Gold fix pricing faces abolition call

Discussion: Pejman Yousefzadeh, ValueWalk, Samizdata, naked capitalism, National Review, RedState, New York Times, PolicyShop, NewsBusters, Washington Post and neo-neocon

Chris Giles / Financial Times:

Piketty findings undercut by errors — Thomas Piketty's book, ‘Capital in the Twenty-First Century’, has been the publishing sensation of the year. Its thesis of rising inequality tapped into the zeitgeist and electrified the post-financial crisis public policy debate.

Discussion: Marginal REVOLUTION, National Review, The Mahablog, Power Line, Wall Street Journal, Hot Air, Daily Surge, NPR, The Week, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and The PJ Tatler

Ezra Klein / Vox:

Veterans aren't the only ones waiting for health care — TWEET SHARE LINKEDIN EMAIL PRINT — In 2005, Phillip Longman, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, published an article entitled “Best Care Anywhere” in the Washington Monthly. The article, which later became a book …

Discussion: Booman Tribune

Sam Foote / New York Times:

Why I Blew the Whistle on the V.A. — PHOENIX — MY decision to become a whistle-blower after 24 years as a physician in a Veterans Affairs hospital was, at first, an easy one. I knew about patients who were dying while waiting for appointments on the V.A.'s secret schedules, and I couldn't stay silent.

Discussion: Liberaland

Joel Gehrke / Washington Examiner:
Nancy Pelosi blames George W. Bush for Veterans Affairs scandal

Discussion: Pejman Yousefzadeh, Scared Monkeys, CNN, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and BizPac Review

George F. Will / Washington Post:

The 2016 presidential candidate we need — All modern presidents of both parties have been too much with us. Talking incessantly, they have put politics unhealthily at the center of America's consciousness. Promising promiscuously, they have exaggerated government's proper scope and actual competence …

Discussion: Washington Monthly and Hullabaloo

Elias Isquith / Salon:

Greenwald's haters, exposed: The real reason Michael Kinsley hates him — In his New York Times attack, the former “Crossfire” star reveals some of the elite media's deepest insecurities — People tell me — they insist, in fact — that there was a time, long ago, when Michael Kinsley wrote …

Discussion: Hullabaloo, Washington Monthly, Los Angeles Times, EconLog and neo-neocon

Larry Rohter / New York Times:

Eduardo Galeano Disavows His Book ‘The Open Veins’ — For more than 40 years, Eduardo Galeano's “The Open Veins of Latin America” has been the canonical anti-colonialist, anti-capitalist and anti-American text in that region. Hugo Chávez, Venezuela's populist president …

Associated Press:

New president Robert Gates: I would have allowed gay men in Boy Scouts — Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates speaks during a news conference in New York.AP — DALLAS - Robert Gates, the new president of the Boy Scouts of America, said Friday that he would have moved last year …

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Towleroad News #gay and Scouting Newsroom

Dave Philipps / Gazette:

Accusations cloud Sheriff Terry Maketa's future: Commanders' complaint alleges affairs, budget improprieties — Updated: — El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa is embroiled in accusations of sex with subordinates, abusive treatment of employees and dismantling oversight of the office budget …

Discussion: Daily Surge, American Spectator and Twitchy

Molly Redden / Mother Jones:

Someone Just Spent $1.5 Million on a GOP Senate Candidate. We'll Probably Never Know Who. — Was it you? — One of the super-PAC ads blanketing Arkansas. Courtesy Government Integrity Fund Action Network — Arkansas is witnessing what may be the most expensive political ad campaign …