Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Classy Move Howard Dean, today: “I will work closely with John Kerry to make sure we beat George Bush in November and turn our country around,” Dean said in a statement that did not specifically mention an endorsement. “There is a lot we can do together to rebuild an America that belongs to all of […]

Kerry/McCain 2004 I keep seeing this posted and emailed all over the place, probably because McCain didn’t exactly ridicule the idea: “John Kerry is a close friend of mine. We have been friends for years,” McCain said Wednesday when pressed to squelch speculation about a Kerry-McCain ticket. “Obviously I would entertain it.” On the other […]

Poor Lou Dobbs In his commentary for today Lou Dobbs complains about being attacked for his anti-globalization stance: NEW YORK (CNN) – You may have noticed recently that I’m being attacked for my views on the exporting of American jobs and my calls for a balanced U.S. trade policy… [and] I will tell you it […]

Day Pass Reading Salon’s lead story today, The new Pentagon papers, is worth the time it takes to watch an ad. AB

Question George Tenet yesterday, before the Senate Armed Services Committee: I’m not going to sit here and tell you what my interaction was … and what I did and didn’t do, except that you have to have confidence to know that when I believed that somebody was misconstruing intelligence, I said something about it. I […]

Stop Digging I like this line from Kerry today: He called the president too “stubborn” to admit his policies weren’t working and said Bush’s economic prescription “begins and ends with tax giveaways.” “When you’re …in the hole, step number one is pretty simple: stop digging.” Being from Massachussets, I suppose Kerry knows something about digging. […]

Argentina Avoids IMF Default… …at least for now: Argentina agrees to meet IMF debt deadline FT.com: Argentina on Tuesday agreed to make a $3.1bn payment to the International Monetary Fund, narrowly avoiding what would have been the biggest single default in the fund’s history… Details of how the IMF and Argentina broke the impasse were […]

The Role of Progressive Blogs Kos wrote an excellent post yesterday about (arguably) the most important roles that progressive blogs have assumed: fact-checkers for the media, and tactical assets for the Democratic party in the battle to unseat George Bush. If the phenomenon of blogging interests you, take a look at it. Kash

Exuberance in the Bond Market Check out what’s happened to the yield on the 10 year treasury note in recent days: Ever since last Friday’s weaker-than-expected employment report, the bond market has been going like gangbusters. Yields on 10 year government bonds have plunged from over 4.0% to 3.7% in a matter of just a […]

From Kash to the NYT in 30 days Figure accompanying Krugman’s editorial in the New York Times today, March 9th, 2004: Kash at Angry Bear on February 10th, 2004: AB