David Dayen

Alexis Tsipras, the head of the Syriza Party in Greece, is making public appearances in Paris to convince other nations to call the bluff of EU leaders on whether they will “force” Greece out of the Eurozone in the event of a Syriza victory on June 17.

NATO formally announced a new timeline for the winding down of troops in Afghanistan, agreeing to transfer responsibility for security to the Afghans by the summer of 2013, with the withdrawal of most troops timed for the end of 2014. This is a similar timeline to the exit of troops from Iraq, with a transfer [...]

Mayor Cory Booker said on Meet the Press yesterday he was “nauseated” by the Obama campaign’s attacks on Mitt Romney’s record with private equity firm Bain Capital. In a follow-up YouTube that looked like the kind of video hostage-takers make their victims record, Booker walked back the comments, saying that Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital is fair game for scrutiny. But cities have reasons to defend equity firms that help fund their projects.

The Supreme Court overturned a number of campaign finance laws in the Citizens United ruling over two years ago. And since that time, we have seen the corrosive power of runaway campaign spending, and who it benefits. In fact, the orgy of spending has become so embarrassing, that it has led some to believe that the Supreme Court may reassess their ruling. A Montana case gives them a chance to do that, or duck for now.

At attention gets more focused on the “fiscal cliff” coming at the end of the year, of most concern to progressives is the continuing game of footsie Nancy Pelosi appears to be playing with Bowles-Simpson, the deficit reduction plan that makes cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits. For tactical reasons, she wants to look more “reasonable” than Republicans on the issue of deficits. But in reality, this striving for reasonableness will only put those entitlement programs at risk while no one makes the case for increasing growth and jobs.

When Ally Financial’s mortgage unit Residential Capital filed for bankruptcy last week, I had an inkling it would spell trouble for the foreclosure fraud settlement the parent company signed with state and federal regulators. How would individuals get loan modifications in the midst of a bankruptcy proceeding? Now it looks like they won’t.

It’s always been the downballot races that are at risk to a SuperPAC spending surge. We saw this in 2010, when all kinds of money flowed into Congressional and state lesiglative races late in the game, often determining the outcome. Those candidates are not well-known and can easily be defined by a flood of negative ads. We’re already seeing this happen in 2012, where it will almost certainly take place at a larger scale than the test run two years ago.

The protests at the NATO summit in Chicago weren’t the only ones over the weekend. A group of about 1,000 bank accountability advocates drove to the front of Timothy Geithner’s house in Bethesda, Maryland, on Sunday, and tried to get an impromptu meeting with the Treasury Secretary. There are more actions planned with other regulators.

Fatster’s new roundup of link and stories on the weekend’s happenings, including Chen Guangcheng, reporter privilege, Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Chase, John Kasich, NAACP, marriage equality, Blockupy, los indignados, Quebec student strike, whaling, actic ice methane, ALEC, Julian Assange and more . . .

Most of the leaders of the free world are meeting at the G8 Summit today at Camp David, and it sounds like the event has the look of an intervention where the other heads of state try to sit Angela Merkel down and convince her to reverse the austerity policies that are crushing European economies and threatening the euro currency union.