I wanted to return to a detail I mentioned in yesterday’s book salon. As I noted, in his book on the auto bailout, Steven Rattner described Citi as being worried during the Chrysler negotiations that retail customers would retaliate if Citi played hard ball. Bankers for Goldman and Citi had advised [JP Morgan Chase VP [...]

Apparently, football started early this week, with San Francisco’s team beating the Texas team one TD, a conversion, and a field goal to a TD on Wednesday, and shutting them out last night with three field goals. I understand the quarterbacks in these games have been a big part of the story, with the QBs [...]

All signs point to the fact that President Obama considers DADT and LGBT discrimination to be merely a political problem and not a Constitutional rights issue. But the Constitution and its fundamental equality, due process and first amendment protections is not a political issue football to be tossed around, nor is it properly enforced by degree of popularity in the latest Gallup poll trendline.

Congratulations to Steven Aftergood, whose persistent efforts to get the government to reveal the topline intelligence budget have finally paid off. Yesterday, the government officially announced that it spent $80.1 billion on intelligence in the last year, up 7% in just the last year and 100% since 9/11. The government announced Thursday that it had [...]

One more boy got dragged into the horror of our country’s war on terror today: Tanner Speer, the 8 or 9 year old son of Christopher Speer, whose death Omar Khadr confessed to. Tanner’s mother read a note the boy wrote for (I think) Memorial Day. “Omar Khadr should go to jail because of the [...]

Well, apparently just 6.9% can and did. Just 6.9 percent of job seekers who found employment in the third quarter relocated for the new position. That was down from a relocation rate of 13.4 percent in the same quarter a year ago, according to the latest Challenger Job Market Index, a quarterly survey conducted by [...]

Both Felix Salmon and DDay are arguing that if the banks lower principal on some unspecified set of loans, it’ll fix the “mortgage mess.” Now, I agree that loan modifications are one of the things we ought to strive for to solve a number of our problems. But I’ve got questions about what they’re proposing. [...]

This whole title insurance thing is getting confusing. Fidelity National Financial Inc., the largest U.S. title insurer, canceled a requirement for lenders to guarantee proper foreclosure procedures amid “heightened review” processes by banks. The company won’t require an indemnity agreement before insuring individual foreclosed properties, according to a memorandum to employees yesterday. It will continue [...]

As the prosecutors in Omar Khadr’s sentencing hearing try to undercut the testimony of a defense witness who believes Khadr can be rehabilitated, not least because of his age, an anonymous White House official justifies to Josh Rogin Obama’s decision to undercut a law prohibiting the government from funding countries that use child soldiers. As [...]

As Adam Serwer noted, a family apparently dressed in Muslim garb was removed from a plane and questioned by the FBI today. Some cannot help but think their appearance had something to do with a family’s removal from a plane Tuesday morning at Memphis International Airport. “My understanding is they were dressed in attire that [...]