Mitt Romney has a big problem ahead, as he is faced with headlines that feature words like bankruptcy and layoffs. The Bain business model, as Paul Krugman noted, enriched Romney and his cronies at Bain at the expense of ordinary workers at the companies they bought.

Reuters paints this picture vividly, as they tell the story of a Kansas City steel mill that Bain purchased, looted, and led into bankruptcy. Even more devastating is the reaction of at least one conservative former Armco worker, who is featured in a new anti-Romney ad put together by Moveon.org. “They [Bain] walked out of here with millions. They left us with nothing.”

Way to reach out to the conservative base, Mitt.

American Family Association, Perry’s partner in the recent Jesuspalooza fundamentalist rally in Houston, The Response, crusaded for years against Movie Gallery, urging boycotts beginning in 2000 and rejoicing in the chain’s closure.

Keep in mind that we have a letter signed by Larry Summers, during the transition, saying that the Administration will undertake “reforming our bankruptcy laws” to help keep homeowners in their homes. And we have assurances delivered in writing to lawmakers like Donna Edwards and Jeff Merkley that they would take this up. All of this has gone down the memory hole now, but this was a fundamental promise, and they broke it. As a result, we have a program to help homeowners that it entirely voluntary on the part of the servicer, with predictable results.

At a press event in North Portland in front of the home of a family struggling to avoid foreclosure, Senator Jeff Merkley unveiled a six-part plan to fix the housing market and rebalance the relationship between borrower and lender. The plan includes what Merkley calls “lifeline bankruptcy,” which is basically the cramdown proposal to allow bankruptcy judges to modify the terms of primary residence loans.

“A detailed accounting of all of Lockheed Martin’s government contracts could fill several large volumes,” writes William Hartung, in his new book Prophets of War, a history of the nation’s largest defense contractor. “Suffice it to say that they are involved at one level or another in nearly everything the federal government does, from providing instruments of death and destruction to collecting taxes and recruiting spies.”

For those who have followed the defense industry for years, that statement is no revelation, but for the vast majority of the American public, the notion that the maker of the radar-evading F-22 Raptor aircraft has also been involved in sorting the mail is both surprising, and important.

I come to Steven Rattner’s Overhaul: An Insider’s Account of the Obama Administration’s Emergency Rescue of the Auto Industry from a very particular perspective. As a Michigander whose husband still works in the auto industry and whose town has benefited from battery subsidies, I’m a grateful direct beneficiary of the work the Obama Administration did to save the auto industry. But that also means I read this book, which might have been subtitled, “Wall Street gapes at Detroit” from the perspective, “Detroit gapes back at Wall Street.”

Oh well, I guess the Lord doesn’t work all that mysteriously after all.

After hearing Mr. Gibbs’ remarks about “the professional left” needing drug testing, my blood began to boil. This diary is an attempt to share a slice of the middle America pie which has valid complaints about the job left undone by President Obama. Sure, Obama has tried — but when you are bleeding to death, a bandaid is little comfort.

At almost every step of the way, BP’s efforts to cap the well spewing oil into the Gulf have wound up making things worse. Let’s hope this doesn’t continue, but for now, we have an uncapped well putting at least 35,000 barrels and maybe as much as 100,000 into the water today (I don’t know why WaPo is foregrounding the 15,000 barrels the last containment dome was catching, implying that no more oil would flow). You can read BP’s entire plan for the next several weeks, both the new cap and the timeline for the relief wells, in this letter to Thad Allen.

It’s most encouraging to find that judges appear to be disinclined to let lenders run roughshod over homeowners, and are finding new and creative solutions to allow homeowners to bargain with creditors to modify their loans.