As Public Citizen’s Lori Wallach explained yesterday, the three trade agreements passed Congress in a whirlwind of activity last night, because a present for the President of South Korea’s visit to Washington today is more important than a considered debate about the role of neoliberal trade agreements and what they have traditionally done to US exports. In addition, the House did pass Trade Adjustment Assistance, with every Democrat supporting and about half of Republicans. This had already passed the Senate, so the entire package goes to the President for his signature, and he is pleased about this:

Alan Grayson sat quietly, patiently, while Bill Maher’s guests, P.J. O’Rourke and Nicole Wallace dissed the Occupy Wall Street participants and ridiculed the “bongo drum” atmosphere. At one point, Ms. Wallace revealed her inner fears by wondering aloud how and where the Occupies relieved themselves. I wondered if she needed a break. Then it was Grayson’s turn to set them straight. Watch the audience reaction.

Unemployment is officially at 9.1% (roughly 14M people) and underemployment is nearly double that. Social Security has been one of if not the most effective government program of all time, yet all we hear out of Washington is how there must be “shared sacrifices” (from all but the very richest of us of course) so Social Security must be “on the table” for budget discussions, even though Social Security has not contributed one dime to the “problems” with the budget.

Rep. Grayson will be offering a presentation on how the mal-distribution of income and wealth have caused the chronic federal deficit, which has led to a series of bubbles, crashes, and other structural economic problems. He will also address how progressive action is necessary in order to fix the problem.

If you’re not an FDL member, and you’d like to join, you can do that here.

Krugman weighs in: “This political reality makes the tax deal a bad bargain for Democrats.”

The idea that the Fed should be held accountable to the Congress and the public was originally treated as a crank notion pushed by extremists who did not understand modern finance. Well, the data are now public and there has been no implosion. Yet again, it turns out that the cranks were right, and those in positions of authority were either ill-informed or lying.

Total potential swing to the GOP looks to be 67 seats, and possibly less.

The Alliance for Retired Americans have placed ads in six key districts across the country, attacking what they describe as Republican plans to raise the retirement age for Social Security benefits. There’s a residual benefit to this as well – it’s a warning shot against Democrats who would like to do the same.

I know, choosing America’s worst columnist when there are so many recipients of wingnut welfare putting their income to work hammering out ridiculous screeds in support of politicians who wish to return our country to the stone age, but when George Will decided to hand out the title of America’s Worst Politician to Alan Grayson, well he really seemed to be angling for the prize.

While there is no doubt the GOP will make big gains on election night, the plausible range of pickups is incredibly wide. Depending on if the national mood breaks one way or another, dozens of seats could be won or lost by very narrow margins.

With that in mind, here are 98 hotly contested races that Firedoglake will be watching closely over the next 10 days. . . and in the case of a few of them, maybe even longer than that.