Since the 1990s, both the Democrats and Republicans have agreed that capital gains taxes should be kept lower than income taxes in order to encourage investment and to support the economy.  It's really pure trickle down theory and further proof for the cynical that whenever the Democrats and Republicans agree on something, it's bad.  Setting capital gains and dividend taxes at the same level as income taxes is the subject of my column today in The Daily.

I'm extremely impressed that it was the President's decision for the Pentagon to use more than 2 helipcopters for the Bin Laden mission, in case something happened to one of the vehicles.  "I don’t want you to plan for an option that doesn’t allow you to fight your way out,” he said.

As already noted here at Dag, a NATO air strike killed Gadhafi's son and narrowly missed the dictator and his wife.  The way I see it, this isn't the war we were sold.  Weren't we told quite explicitly that Ghadhafi wasn't being personally targeted?

Talking Points Memo reports that its commenting system has crashed due to a failure at amazon.com.  The failure of Amazon's cloud problem has hobbled Web sites all over the place leaving articles and events uncommented upon.

At the White House, there was much rejoicing.

There's no question about it.  The people have the right, no the obligation, to see the President's birth certificate.  I don't even care if it says he was born in Kenya.  Because, says Donald Trump, if Obama releases his birth certificate, Trump will make his tax returns public.

Looks like John Boehner has been paying visits to Wall Street bankers lately, trying to figure out how close the Congress can bring the government to hitting the debt ceiling before they all freak out and sell America to China.  Or, more likely, freak out and stop donating money to Republican candidates for national office.

Krugman today captures the fear that's been gnawing at me all weekend about Obama.  I get that he's in a rough spot and I get that losing the House had serious consequences for our side of the debate.  I get that the President might have to give up $38 billion in spending that he didn't want to give up.

But does he have to act like he's enjoying it?

The deficit was caused by the financial crisis and the resulting recession, which will cost the U.S. $500 billion a year in tax revenues going forward.  Absent the recession, the "trillion dollar deficits" we're worried about now would be half trillion dollar deficits and we'd be talking about how to grow our way out of them.

Absent the recession and absent two wars (one justified but mismanaged so as to still be ongoing even though it should have been a short military operation, one that didn't have to happen at all) those half trillion dollar deficits would be even smaller.

Late last year, as The Daily was setting up for its launch, I wrote a few sample columns that never saw the light of day beyond the various product testers and decisionsmakers within News Corp.  This was my first one, about Paul Ryan, who just today came out with a plan to "fix" Medicare by killing the program and moving future retirees back into the private insurance market that was historically so bad for retirees that we needed Medicare to fix it.

Barack Obama's re-election bid has launched and I guess that means the silly season is upon us.  We all have to band together to beat Michele Bachmann or some such nonsense.  So how are you all feeling about this, Daggers?  Too soon?  I know it's too soon for me.

I took a chance with my column this week and wrote about something other than Libya.  I'm always more comfortable with social and financial topics anyway as I totally hate relying on my B.A. in Theatre with an emphasis in dramatic writing when people ask my what qualifies me to bicker with generals over combat strategy.

Juan Cole's strongly worded "Open Letter To The Left" about Libya seemed designed to take down a very dangerous bit of information that's come out recently but hasn't gotten nearly enough attention in my opinion -- the Libyan rebels we're defending have real and substantial ties to Al-Qaeda.

There, I said it.  It was not an easy thing to say.  Especially not after reading this from the Atlantic 10 years ago.

...are the still unresolved issues stemming from the financial crisis.  For example, the FDIC filed suit against three Washington Mutual executives last week seeking to recover $900 million that the government lost arranging for the bank's eventual sale to JPMorgan Chase.  I wrote about the suit and the absurd defense of the bankers in my column today.

KGB wants to know why so many Keynesian, "the debt is not an issue" lefties have become budget hawks where the Libyan war is concerned.  I'm certainly guilty of this.  When it comes to the economy, I'm so Keynesian that Keynes would question my sanity.  I have advocated using the powers of the Federal Reserve to pay people's credit card bills.  I believe that Social Security benefits should be expanded, not cut.

While my wife and I were gallivanting in Barcelona, which is a heck of a town, some pundits here at home and even some world powers, began beating the war drum once again.  To be fair, nobody is calling for an outright invasion of Libya (right?) but they do want the U.S. to impose a no fly zone, to bomb Gadhafi's air defenses and to basically use its might to tip the balance of power in favor of Libya's rebels.

I was really disappointed to see that Beyonce took seven figures to perform for the Gadhafi clan and that she and her husband Jay-Z then partied with the dictator's family after the show.  I wrote about it today for The Daily and pretty much make my case there.

The most ridiculous critique of civil service unions I've heard so far this week goes like this: "It isn't fair that the union members can vote for the people who will ultimately meet them on the other side of the negotiating table.  Even worse, the unions contribute money to campaigns and thus have undo influence over there negotiating partners in government."

This Slate article is pretty darned amazing.  John Dickerson imagines that President Obama is secretly working with the Republicans on some hardcore budget cutting.  Dickerson writes of this approvingly, as if a back room deal is the only way that we'll get to the Social Security and Medicare cuts that he believes we need.

I hope you'll all indulge me once a week if I post the lede to my new column here, along with a link back to "The Daily."  Because, heck... I want to discuss this stuff with you guys.  But they own it because I sold it to them for money that I wanted.  I mean, "that I needed."

So, assuming your indulgence (since I'm not going to wait for an answer), here's the first bit: