Reports have been circulating for weeks that Bill is pissed off. The suggestion was that Bill felt the Obama people had not shown the proper deference toward him.

Everyone was worried about Bill’s speech - would he really embrace Obama? Or was Bill still to so upset about being slighted that his support would be merely lukewarm.

    Right now CNN has up a front-page "Election 2008 Issues" article that lies about Social Security, from the title to the first line to the very end.  This is part of a concerted right wing campaign, including a not-coincidentally-just-released film "IOUSA", financially backed by a right wing think tank, to use the phony "crisis" in Social Security as an election gimmick.

    The article features comments by right-wingers and "reformers" and not a single cite to experts, like economist Paul Krugman, who - accurately - claim that there is no crisis whatsoever.  Since CNN doesn't allow comments in response to the story, I'm calling CNN on the lies in its story here.

Well, the 2nd quarter revised GDP is out today and the economy grew at a rate of 3.3%, boosted by exports being up 13.2% (imports were down 7.2%).  Now, for all the conspiracy theorists out there, I will delve a little into the more interesting details of these numbers.

For reference, you can check out the actual data here.

The underlying facts of the latest expansion are incredibly simple.  Let's use some charts and graphs to explain the basic problems.

- so why should we trust him with ours?

Cindy had John sign a prenup in 1980 - at a time when such agreements were very rare.

Every time I turn on the TV, the Republicans are offering advice to Democrats about how make all our lives better. There isn’t a move that Democrats have made this week that we didn’t have some dweeb on Larry King Live or some other show telling us how to make it better.

Democrats have been entirely too polite in their response. Maybe they don’t know what to say. No problem. Just return the favor by providing them some kindly advice about how Republicans can win the presidency. Ask them, "Is John McCain ready to turn his back on Republican ideology?"

I thought, with Labor Day weekend coming up, what better time to share this clip of John McCain?

In this video, Senator McCain verbally attacks a construction worker who dares to question McCain's claim that migrant workers earn $50 per hour picking lettuce.

Ok I lied it is. As we have all undoubtly figured out. Noun, Verb, POW. And as we've seen, John McCain has been pretty consistent in saying his experience of being a POS err  POW is why he is qualified to be President. However, the media is just now picking up on this story when McCain has been doing this since the primaries.

An interesting point of view from the founder of big box store Home Depot, Bernie Marcus, explaining how enforcing labor law will lead to the ruin of America....I'm not sure how many houses Bernie owns, but in my neighborhood America is already in economic ruin, despite the long decline of unions.  

I think the path to economic ruin was caused by the declining wages from Americans competing globally against workers in the third world.  Big boxers like Walmart and Home Depot also helped kill a lot of small businesses and entrepreneurs, with their unfair advantage in beating down employees by abusing labor law.  Beating down suppliers is okay, but keeping your labor costs low through illegal means isn't.  Plus the bulk of the customers for small biz are the middle class.  They need fair wages.

Would enforcing labor rights help America back track from the path to Economic Ruin?  Maybe.  When unions were the strongest in the late 1950's the middle class was thriving.  CEO's like Bernie only made about 20 times the average workers salary back then, so maybe not so much from his perspective.  Today CEO's rake in 200x the average salary!

Much has been said this week about Doris Kearns Goodwin's brilliant book Team of Rivals at a time when all the tradmed wants to talk about drama between Obama and the Clintons. Last night, Hillary did what she had to do to try to put that to rest. She was on message (even if some of that message was self-centered) and she talked about the same middle class folks she championed during the campaign. Thus, it seemed that Obama's biggest rival turned into an ally. But, for obvious reasons, little is being said of Obama's other rival: John Edwards. And while, in my opinion, Edwards has no place at this convention, the message he championed during his campaign most certainly does.

Casualties, financial costs, etc. Show your local neo-con these statistics when he starts saying it was worth it.

The War that has gone on for around half a decade has cost us much in blood and treasure, and popular opinion around the world. This war isn't just unjustifiable, it's fiscally irresponsible, morally wrong, and continually deepining the financial wounds in the American Economy, with a shower of salt upon them to add to the pain.

Amazingly, in the past several months I've been called a racist 3 times, more than anytime in my life!  The first time was when the Jeremiah Wright thing broke out and I defended the guy, I was called bigoted against whites.  Then, just the other I was called first "pro-Black" then "racist against whites" because I favored Barack Obama over that walking museum piece from Arizona.  Now, today, the conservative economic blog site, Carpe Diem, is labeling people like me racist for demanding things be made in this country!

Yesterday, the FDIC issued its quarterly banking profile.  None of the news was good.  In addition, we have learned the number of problem institutions is increasing.  As a result, the FDIC is considering tapping into money from the Treasury Department.  Bottom line -- things are getting worse in the financial sector.

David Walker is not a politician. He was hired by Bill Clinton to head the GAO. His official title was: Comptroller General of the United States and head of the GAO. He was the nation's chief accountant. He was not an elected official and was hired for 15 years regardless of which president or political party was in office.

Walker has been preaching of impending fiscal doom for some time now. It is his premise that there is not enough money to pay future retirees their full Social Security and Medicare benefits and unless something is done immediately, our country may not survive.

A commenter to my last diary: "Social Security and Medicare Crisis" asked the following question:

"TKH, as a Democrat, why do you believe the Walkers of the world, but not the Kuttners?"

By this he meant, that while Walker talks about doom and gloom for Social Security and all other entitlement programs, there are those who believe the problems can be easily fixed.

Below the fold is my response

I was watching media coverage of Hillary's convention speech this morning, and what was more disturbing than the way it was being characterized was what came immediately after it -- a segue to a lede about whether "a new cold war is about to begin."

This wasn't Fox News.  I think it was CNN, but I was switching around.  What's disturbing about it is both the fact that the media is more than willing to take their narratives from conservative talking points if it makes for a good cock fight, and that it is so incredibly wrong.

Something needs to be done to make sure this election does not become a referendum on a hugely outdated model of Russia.

I'm amazed at the amount of negative press in the Wall Street Journal and other pro-business rags against the Employee Free Choice Act.  Today, the founder of famed big box store Home Depot speaks out with his op-ed Bad Labor Law Is a Path to Economic Ruin in the WSJ.  A couple of weeks ago big boxer Wal-Mart raised the alarm and started holding mandatory meetings for all managers and supervisors warning about the EFCA, which will add penalties for violating the 71 year old National Labor Relations Act.  

One thing Wal-Mart and Home Depot have in common is that they have utilized their humongous size to run Mom and Pop stores out of business.  In addition to beating down suppliers on price, they also have an unfair advantage in beating down employees who might otherwise seek better wages and benefits.  Mom and Pop don't worry about Federal Labor Law, because they don't have sufficient employees to fall under the National Labor Relations Act.  
<more over the fold>

The "More of The Same" theme continues to run strong in Barack Obama's ads, and this latest one is no exception. The ad highlights McCain's own admission he doesn't understand economics, and makes full use of the picture of The Embrace.

Hitting McCain on the economy is hitting McCain at his Achilles heel.  A new Gallup poll reveals that voters trust Obama more on the economy, which is the number one issue in the campaign:

PRINCETON, NJ -- As the Democratic National Convention gets underway, voters, by a 52% to 40% margin, believe Barack Obama is better able than John McCain to handle the economy. The economy easily tops the list when voters are asked which of five issues will be most important to their vote for president.

Expect that 12 point margin to grow as voters are educated about how un-educated McCain is on the economy.

Yesterday I had hit on the situation going on with the automakers.  Originally, I had intended to include some other stories, but the first piece was large enough (perhaps too large?) that I realized that I had to push the other pieces. Well, as promised, we got some interesting stuff. First on the auto front a cool piece on zero emission cars.  Next we got fallout from biofuels and water preservation.  Third, it seems the Chinese aren't so thirsty for the black stuff right now. Lastly could the current woes Australia's mining sector tell us something?