What a weekend! We learned on Friday that the markets loved the European Union's decision to more fiscally unite -- sans the UK -- to, ah, do what exactly? Well, no one really knows, so the markets are tanking today. Where will it end? In a global recession if our German and French Overlords have anything to do with it.
And then there were Six: as Herman Cain departed the debate stage and Jon Huntsman was considered too marginal a candidate to include. What did we learn from the Saturday ABC Republican primary debate, other than that ABC sucks at moderating debates? Well, we learned that Obama is 100% wrong on everything. Wow. Who would have thought Obama was going to have a perfect score of zero?
Our political process is not polarized, of course. Anyway, another thing we learned was that Mitt Romney is in trouble and Newt Gingrich is not. Is anybody else in trouble? One guess. (Hint: it's not who you think.)
Steven Van Zandt had a great post on the Huffington Post this morning. Yes, our democracy is broken because campaigns are financed by unlimited, unregulated cash, thanks to the Citizens United decision and, according to Van Zandt, Buckley v. Valeo, a case I was unfamiliar with. It turns out that Buckley was the case where the Supreme Court put forth the notion that money is, essentially, free speech. Yikes.
The implication is, of course, that the wealthy can afford more free speech that the poor, and that's okay!
Finally, Paul Krugman warned us that we are in a depression and democracy is under siege in Eastern Europe. Hungary, apparently, has an upsurge in far-right support, with attacks on Roma (gypsies) and a rise in anti-Semitism. And Austria is up to its old tricks, with the popularity of Hitler on the ascendent. Yikes indeed.
When you add it all up, it was not a very good weekend, even if the Giants beat the Cowboys.
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