Janet Yellen and Sarah Bloom Raskin finally got confirmed by the Senate as members of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors. Peter Diamond, another nominee, will have to wait until the lame duck session. The confirmations were part of a large deal, where some nominees got to move through the Senate in exchange for Democrats holding pro forma sessions so President Obama could not make any recess appointments.

And as the facts pile up, and Brewer potentially steps away from a fight, if the US Citizenship and Immigration Service follows through with their memo on how they can offer a path to citizenship without Congressional action, then only one side would be on the offense.

It’s summer in an election year, and that’s the time for the deficit peacocks to come out of hibernation and strut their feathers, letting everyone know that they care – very much! – about deficits. This is a bipartisan phenomenon. On one side of the aisle, Republicans want to freeze discretionary spending, borrowing an idea from the other side of the aisle, from Claire McCaskill (D-MO). She at least tried to sound reasonably sane, but the impact of her preferred policy would be pretty negative.

Speaking of believing lies more strongly, you have a host of deficit fanatics on Capitol Hill who cling to the deeply held belief that tax cuts create more revenue. At least, that’s the only explanation I can come up with for this lunacy.

America’s greatest promise lies in the bold idea that each citizen in every generation is Founder of the country. Though the promise remains unachieved, the idea is worth celebrating this Fourth of July.

John Kyl has officially announced he intends to waste an oversight hearing on March 23 beating up Eric Holder because he did not disclose an amicus brief opposing unlimited Presidential power.

I said this much closer to 9/11/01, and I’ll say it again now: America is a big, strong, wealthy country with a rich history and a time-tested tradition of civil adjudication. What happened eight years ago was deplorable, sad, and horrible to witness, but it wasn’t anything close to an attack that could threaten America and American identity. . . unless we let it.