“THE NEW ADMINISTRATION WILL TAKE OFFICE in January 2009, inheriting a budget for the Department of Defense that will exceed $600 billion per year, roughly equal to the rest of the world. Because we are not facing the possibility of armed conflict with the rest of the world put together, it’s clear that some adjustment […]

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Economic Treason—Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky represents a state that is home to Toyota’s biggest plant outside of Japan. Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama represents a state that is home to Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Hyundai, and Toyota. Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee represents a state that is home to Nissan’s North American headquarters and a new […]

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Roubinomics—New York University economics professor Nouriel Roubini predicted and defined the current economic collapse in 2006. He now says we are in the “worst U.S. recession in the last fifty years.” What does the economist who foresaw this economic crisis prescribe to end it? “A major aggressive fiscal stimulus, government spending on goods and services, […]

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RUNNING A RIFF THAT SEVERAL MEMBERS of Congress had reduced to one paragraph, while Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson groped for the right mix of money and policy to keep a recession from spiraling into a depression, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) described the state of the nation: “We are facing what has been called the most […]

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Campaign Grammar—The dirty wars waged by right-wing despots in South and Central America turned the word “disappeared” into both a noun and a transitive verb. Here in the U.S. it appears that former Senator Phil Gramm is a desaparecido and that John McCain has disappeared him. One of the sponsors of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999, which […]

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