Duncan: I know I’ll make this point a billion times before this is all over, but there’s a difference between thinking that well run financial intermediaries (which, in theory, competition will create) are necessary for a modern economy and believing that the semi-oligopolistic system of...

And Digby, too. And this is pretty damned interesting, too. Josh Marshall: It turns out that one of the features of the 2005 Bankruptcy bill was to put derivative counter parties [like CDS holders] at the front of the line ahead of other creditors in bankruptcy proceedings. Actually, from what I can...

David Frum speaks to the Republican base: Here’s Rahm Emanuel on Face the Nation yesterday: “the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican party.” What a great endorsement for Rush! … But what about the rest of the party? Here’s the duel that Obama a...

I’ve been thinking for the past few weeks that Arlen Specter should switch back to the Democratics party. Dick Polman points out all the reasons why that’s such a good idea....

Considering the Taliban belief system, this should be a long hard slog. (But in other news, Maureen Dowd addresses the much weightier question posed by David Brooks: Should Michelle Obama cover up her biceps?) WASHINGTON — President Obama declared in an interview that the United States was not win...

The latest bit of Rudeness is awesome for that image alone, but really it goes so much further into why nobody should ever listen to John McCain: The whole battle over a bullshit modicum of bullshit “pork barrel” projects is, well, bullshit. What’s budgeted in the spending bill now...

Jon Eisenberg writes about the investigation into Al-Haramain - and how the Obama administration is continuing the same state-secrets stance to cover up illegal wiretapping. Gee, so much for the “professor of constitutional law” theory, in which Obama would be so sensitive to these issue...

Great piece by Michael Lind in today’s Salon on the timid liberalism of Obama’s policies, an absolute must-read. Here’s an excerpt: I’m sympathetic to the argument that the public, after nearly half a century of conservative anti-government propaganda, will oppose the direct ...

Really, this just appalls me. But Wilkes-Barre is, how do I put this? Mobbed up. Luzerne County is as crooked as a dog’s hind leg. (And believe me, you have to be pretty bad to stand out in Pennsylvania, hardly a bastion of public ethics.) As scandals from Wall Street to Washington roil the pu...

Once upon a time, I worked for a guy who spent a lot of money on a high-priced executive coach. He and other members of upper management would attend weekly meetings in a penthouse office and role-play different scenarios under his guru’s guidance. My boss would always come back eager to test ...