For the most part David Brooks’ column is a confused diatribe against the Obama administration’s economic policies with a lecture on moral rectitude thrown in for good measure. He starts by condemning the efforts to stimulate the economy, which he misrepresents. Then it gets worse.

Ben Nelson, Nebraska’s Democratic senator, will retire from the Senate next year, despite benefiting from a million dollars in early-cycle advertising funded by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Observers from the Arab League have reached Homs, Syria, at the same time as Syrian security forces pulled tanks off the streets. Even then, security forces squeezed off their final shots at the protesters and tanks are still reported waiting just outside the cities.

Occupy groups in Iowa are coming together to demonstrate and organize during the 2012 Presidential Iowa Caucuses. Planning what they call a “raucous caucus,” they say they will not “settle for a least-worst candidate” and will push people to be “uncommitted to the candidates.”

The LA Times writes about a shifting message for the 2012 election campaign: The President and Democrats will position their party as the defenders of the middle class. Meanwhile, there is a huge income gap between the increasingly wealthy Congress and the voters they presume to represent.

While the American people are still not feeling good about the state of the economy, they are feeling much better about it than they have in months, according to Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index. This is good news for President Obama’s political prospects. Obama’s job approval rating is highly correlated with the American people’s economic outlook.

One of the standard opinions from many economists, especially those on the right, was that the US spending/debt load was unsustainable and would surely spark massive inflation. After the downgrade of US debt by Standard and Poor’s after the debt limit deal, debt was seen as toxic. America just had to deal with its debt problem or the bond market would deal with it for them. This dog simply has not barked.

Robert Samuelson confuses taxing the rich with slavery. Coincidence? Nipping at the sherry again? You decide.

“I thought British policy was to make the world England.” So said the fictional Major Duncan Hayward in the Hollywood version of Last of the Mohicans.  Major Hayward was appalled when his superior officer granted concessions to the independent colonials as a condition for getting the nascent Americans to help the British Army fight the [...]

Dayen’s news roundup for Monday evening, December 26, 2011. Newt! Paul! Michele! Obama signing statement, Ron Paul’s explanation, Krugman defends EPA regulations, Russians demonstrate, Arab League dithers in Syria, and much more.