Nothing, you see, would be more dangerous to America than for us to suddenly stop taking American Conservative Intellectual Thinkers seriously.

Seafood buyer Bruce Guerra, owner of Yscloskey Seafood, sums up the dilemma faced by everyone in his industry. If the state prohibits its summoned biologist from coming to test seafood about which everyone involved has questions, how can he be sure he’s buying — and selling — safe seafood?

Harry Reid said yesterday that the defense authorization bill, which will open for debate on Tuesday, probably wouldn’t get completed until the lame-duck session after the midterm elections. I understand this to mean that there would be votes this coming week, on a motion to proceed, on an amendment adding the DREAM Act to the bill, and on an amendment stripping the legislative repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Perhaps an additional amendment, banning secret holds, would get a vote as well. But the bill would then get shelved until after the midterms.

How bad is the economy? This bad.

I encourage everyone to read President of the California State NAACP Alice Huffman’s editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle in support of ending marijuana prohibition in California, and specifically in support of Proposition 19.

When Philip Dray came by to discuss his book project on the entire sweep of American labor history, I thought he was out of his mind. I knew that he was an accomplished author who had written an award winning-book on lynchings (“At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America”).

Two weeks ago, I suggested Obama would do well to hire the woman who wrote the book on the struggles of the middle class.

Yesterday, he did that.

One of the reasons I was still somewhat optimistic about the Affordable Care Act was the new temporary high-risk pool which was supposed to provide “affordable” insurance for “uninsurables” in the individual market. Little did I know the new plan will still cost my Mother 800 bucks a month!

The topline US reports on the Afghan parliamentary elections will strike a narrative flourish about ordinary citizens braving bomb threats and rocket attacks to reach the polls and perform their civic duty. You can bet that will be mirrored in the President’s statement on the elections later today. Remember the purple fingers?

Economic news, from the standpoint of ordinary folks, continues to be bad, and DC yawns. Too bad that the poor aren’t seen as much of a political constituency.