I see over at Swampland today that likely casualties of the budget deal include the long-term unemployed (who are unlikely to get another extension of unemployment benefits) and, of all things during a time when we're encouraging people to get more education to be better at their jobs, graduate students, who will lose the ability to take out federally subsidized loans.  One can only hope that pulling subsidies for those loans will eventually bring the costs of graduate schools dow

My latest column for The Daily was a reaction Thomas Friedman's recent New York Times column calling for a third party presidential candidate to be selected by some Internet Web site that he says is backed by flashy hedge fund money.

This morning, Paul Krugman praised a New York Review Of Books article by Elizabeth Drew called "What Were They Thinking?" that I recommend you all read.  It's depressing stuff but it at least offers an explanation as to why Obama never called the Republicans on their debt ceiling bluff and why he's made so darned many compromises that it's almost inconceivable that this whole debate ends as anything other than a Republican victory.

I used to think that the most lasting effects that a President can have on the country are his appointments to the federal courts.  But George W. Bush has changed my mind about that.  If you really want to have a lasting voice in the national conversation, just put your name on a big, fundamental piece of legislation and make it sunset after you're out of office.  The "Bush Tax Cuts," designed from the start to expire after Bush's two terms were, were a devious trap, set to explode in the face of the next president, preferably a Democrat.

The largest single economic problem the U.S.

Over at TPM, the early response to Obama's presser seems to be that this was a political homerun for President Obama.  I get the logic here.  He used his bully pulpit to very clearly articulate that all of the debt ceiling obstruction is coming from the right.  He tortured House speaker John Boehner by praising his honesty and intentions, thus making the rest of the Republican party look a tad insane.  This could, as David Kurtz argues, cost the Republican some stature with the press, if not with vote

I have criminal trials on the brain this week with Dominique Strauss-Kahn and now Casey Anthony dominating the non-political news.  But, as I said in a previous post, I'm not a crime news junky.  I am, however, very interested in procedure and civil liberties.  When something like the DSK case happens I almost immediately wonder, "what happens to the accused when they are not fabulously wealthy?" Which is the topic of my column for The Daily this week.

I don't follow murder trials closely and I can't stand Nancy Grace, a former prosecutor who seems to think that no innocent people have ever been accused of a crime in America ever.  When juries acquit in what we outsiders are assured are "slam dunk" cases, I don't get angry about it.  It's pointless, after all, and the jury generally knows better than anybody whether or not a prosecutor has surmounted the "reasonable doubt" hurdle.

Must be an awkward day for Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.  His case against former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn is reportedly collapsing and the most serious charges might be dropped.  Prosecutors are likely hoping to save face by getting Kahn to plead guilty on some misdemeanor charge but Strauss-Kahn has proven himself a fighter.

A few minutes ago, the Greek parliament voted in favor of the austerity plan being pushed on its governments by the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission.  The result will be falling living standards in Greece, lower growth (if not outright recession) and much suffering in general.  But, Greece will receive the n

Michelle Bachmann is...

...so flaky that when she showers with Head and Shoulders, she disappears.

...so flaky that if she eats a Hershey's Kiss she becomes pan au chocolat.

...so flaky that she snowed in her own cross country bus tour.

...so flaky that when she goes to KFC, biscuits order her.

...so flaky that she could sell herself in Japan as panko under the brand name Pannko.

…is so flaky that she thought the first primary debate would be held on the Food Network.

…is so flaky that the Gorton’s Fisherman chases her around.

I'm pretty bad at the politics part of politics.  Sure, I can read opinion polls and guess at what messages will play well in communities I know well, but I don't have a great crystal ball for predicting how groups of people will react to major events.

When I look over at the Republican ticket I see one threat (Mitt Romney) and a lot of nothing else.  I also think Romney is eminently beatable and that so long as the economy is improving, even if it's improving too slowly, Obama has to be the odds-on favorite to win in 2012.  But, hey, anything can happen, right?

Writing a weekly column and blogging here adds up to a lot of spilled words every week.  I'm even starting to sense an evolving theme that wouldn't have been the one I'd necessarily chosen if I'd set out to write a whole bunch of little pieces that were going to add up to something.  Don't worry, I'm not going to go all meta on you here.  Just introducing the idea I've been struggling with -- the role of the economy as an organizing factor in society and the role of corporate executives as the most influential, powerful and unaccountable leaders.  My column for

Update: after considering Genghis' comments, I edited the headline here and I want to add one thing, for those of you who have already read the post.  Even according to the Times story I linked to, Obama and Geithner are right now skeptical about the idea of a repatriation tax holiday.  It also looks as if the lobbying effort for this dates back to 2010.  So, yes, I probably did get ahead of myself.

Apparently, President Obama is having trouble raising Wall Street money for 2012.  One anonymous champion of capitalism even complains that it's because "Obama simply doesn't like rich people."  I figure a statement like that will draw cackles around here.  If Obama doesn't like rich people, who the heck does he like?  And, if he treats the people he dislikes as well as he's been treating the rich, how do I get on the big guy's bad side?

American businesses are breaking up with the middle class.  This won't be news around here, though it might stir up some controversy over at The Daily today.  In my column this week I looked into some of the potential implications of two big changes in American business.  They used to rely largely on domestic middle class consumers to make their profits.  This was true even in the 1990s, when the main effect of globalization was overseas exploitation in order to sell cheap goods ba