I guess this little baddie has been around a while…

For more on the recent outbreak, check out our Swine Flu Roundup.

“It is near-extinct in many ways in the Northeast, it is extinct in many ways on the West Coast, and it is endangered in the Mountain West, increasingly endangered in the Southwest… and if you look at the state of the party, it is a shrinking entity.”
- Former McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt on Repubs
This [...]

When I read the following I have to ask, “Who’s lying here?”
Because haven’t we heard from some pretty high profile folks that these techniques worked, most notably former VP Cheney?
I guess maybe Hillary was right.
First, from NY Times, what traditional interrogation tactics gave us:
Along with another F.B.I. agent, and with several C.I.A. officers present, I [...]

That means he was made to feel as if he were drowning an average of 6 times and day for 30 straight days.
Kind of puts that whole ticking clock scenario to rest.
From Emptywheel:
I’ve put this detail in a series of posts, but it really deserves a full post. According to the May 30, 2005 Bradbury [...]

“The United States is a nation of laws. My Administration will always act in accordance with those laws, and with an unshakeable commitment to our ideals. That is why we have released these memos, and that is why we have taken steps to ensure that the actions described within them never take place again.”
- President [...]

A new article from Bloomberg spells out the possible scenarios we face. Obviously I side much more with the Keynes approach because of the reasons laid out here, but obviously inflation fears aren’t unfounded.
Here’s more…
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke is siding with John Maynard Keynes against Milton Friedman by flooding the financial system with [...]

Personally, I just don’t care at this point. People will think what they want. It was dumb when the left did it to Bush and it’s just as dumb now.
From David Horowitze agrees:
Conservatives, please. Let’s not duplicate the manias of the Left as we figure out how to deal with Mr. Obama. He is not [...]

I do feel bad for the guy, but with the internet providing the means for anybody to easily donate to a campaign, the game changed and McCain’s public finance laws couldn’t change with it.
From Wash Times:
“No Republican in his or her right mind is going to agree to public financing. I mean, that’s dead. That [...]

Politifact tracked 513 promises Obama made during the primaries, and yesterday took a look at his top 10.
Of the 10 promises, 1 has been fully kept, 1 has been kept via compromise, 5 are in the works and 3 have had no action taken on them.
I’ll have more on those last 3 later, but first [...]

Looks like the London branch is mostly responsible for the mismanagement, and Hank Greenberg explains in detail what happened that led to this disaster.

Here’s the thing…if most of these bonuses are going to Londoners who we can’t afford to lose because they’re the only people who can wind down all of these accounts, then [...]

From the moment I heard Republican hacks like Michelle Malkin start referring to the themes in Rand’s ‘Atlas Shrugged’, I knew it was destined to fail. After all, to think that they don’t understand that the selfishness of the few led us to where we are today conveys a particularly acute brand of ignorance.
Still, who [...]

WTF?
Obviously I don’t take part in jingoistic, populism often, but this just strikes me as just plain unamerican.
From NY Times:
In a sentimental gesture from a no-nonsense kind of guy, Jory Spears lifted his camera phone on Friday in a somber salute to this city’s beloved Sears Tower.
“The Sears Tower has some really big shoulders, it [...]

More fun from the neo-conservatives.
Here’s the transcript…
MATTHEWS: The polling that took place before we attacked, conducted by “Time” and CNN, showed that 72 percent of the American people, nearly three quarters, believed it was likely that Saddam Hussein was involved in the attack on us 9/11. How do you think they got that idea, that [...]

If you didn’t see it last night, well, here ya go…
Part One

Part Two

Part Three

That very last part about Stewart’s mother…wow. I think we all know somebody like that and it’s why we’re so furious when we consider how jokers like Cramer were asleep at the wheel at best or, at worst, were complicit in all [...]

Do you know which one?
Tyler Cowen does.

We all know Cramer has a big mouth, but back in 2006 he gets dangerously close to admitting that he has engaged in “fomenting” the market, which he calls “blatantly illegal.”
First, most of the quote:
You can’t foment. That’s a violation. [...]
You can’t create an impression yourself that a stock’s down, but you do it [...]

Cramer should have just shut up and taken his lumps. Instead he tried to make it Stewart the boogeyman and here’s how that turned out.

Yes, Cramer actually fired back and then tried to use the excuse of, “Well, but, but, but Warren Buffett and stuff!”
I’m sure we’ll have more tomorrow.

I thought since I’ve been so sunny today, here’s a few more rays to pick you up…

The math is pretty simple. It’s the worst drop in the S&P 500 since The Great Depression.
Now, since I posted that graph earlier of how much GDP loss it’ll take to get to 1932 numbers, who here thinks that [...]

Practically speaking, at our current rate we’d need the GDP to drop 6.6% in 4 straight quarters for it to hit the purple line below.
While that’s not very easy to do, it’s much more likely if the banking problem doesn’t get solved and credit freezes up again.
Calculated Risk offers this handy graph…

And, as you [...]

Christina Romer explains exactly why at the Brookings Institute today.
Some key points:
This similarity of causes between the Depression and today’s recession means that President Obama begins his presidency and his drive for recovery with many of the same challenges that Franklin Roosevelt faced in 1933. Our consumers and businesses are in no mood to spend [...]