“Splat” would be the sound we’re all listening for rather desperately, the sound of the tanking economy finally hitting the rocks at the bottom of the cliff so that the sane left amongst us can begin the long, laborious process of cleaning up. Trouble is, there’s no sign of a splat anytime soon. Dig the latest unemployment numbers from the BLS, chart courtesy of Speaker Pelosi’s blog…

There is some paraphrasing happening in the subject line but it isn’t a stretch to imagine Citigroup as a greedy child eyeing a shiny toy in an aisle while Obama looks on like an exasperated parent.  As you may have heard, Citigroup- the financial institution awarded a $45 billion bailout- had plans to purchase a $50 million corporate jet. The Obama administration wasn’t amused.
ABC News has learned that on Monday officials of the Obama administration called Citigroup about the company’s new $50 million corporate jet and told execs to “fix it.”….
The company …

Following up on the posts about economic bad news and our current lack of leadership, a great quote from the administration.  Why can’t we have foreclosure relief?  According to an anonymous White House official, “We’re done in two months. The next administration can try to find a way out of that maze.”
Yeah, no worries. It’s not like there’s a crisis or anything. (h/t TPM)

For the last couple months, many members of my generation (known as The Youth) have been feeling an odd sensation, correlating closely with Obama’s rise in the polls and subsequent election win. After being raised on a steady diet of Simpsons, irony and cynicism, and after 8 years of Bush, we’ve started to feel something I understand is called “Hope.” Hope for our future, hope that we may not be irreversibly screwed, even hope that there may be jobs available next year. It’s a really great sensation, and I’ve been …

In roughly descending order of general imbecility, there’s stupid, there’s Teh Stoopid, and there’s Daniel Henninger:
This year we celebrate the desacralized “holidays” amid what is for many unprecedented economic ruin — fortunes halved, jobs lost, homes foreclosed. People wonder, What happened? One man’s theory: A nation whose people can’t say “Merry Christmas” is a nation capable of ruining its own economy.
Yes, you are reading that right: Henninger’s theory is that the entire financial meltdown is the result of the War on Christmas — you know, the fake phoney-baloney ginned-up outrage …

John McCain was not always a Mavericky Maverick on a crusade to change his party. When he first got in to Congress, he seemed to like it there. People kept wanting to give him things, and he didn’t see anything wrong with that. And when one of those people explained that there were a few pesky regulators making things difficult for him, McCain, along with a few other Senators, was happy to help him out. Thus were born the Keating Five.
After getting off with some harsh …